


Exit Music

by IndridGrey



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Always Female Dean Winchester, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Domestic Fluff, Emotionally Expressive Sam Winchester, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, No one you'll miss, Noncon parent/adult!child incest, Pre-Series Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Referenced Past Childhood Sexual Abuse, Sexual Dysfunction Due to Trauma, Sibling Incest, Sibling teasing, Unwanted Pregnancy, medium character death, ominous ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 12:29:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20815181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndridGrey/pseuds/IndridGrey
Summary: Deanna's 24th birthday--the day that she will be of legal age for mating, the day that her dad has been waiting for since she was 13, the day that might as well be a death sentence if she doesn't escape--is fast approaching when life hits her with not just one butfourcurve balls.Now things are infinitely more complicated but the most important question still remains: how the fuck does one escape one of the best hunters in the business?





	1. wake from your sleep

**Author's Note:**

> The amazing, fantastic, mind-blowingly pretty art is the work of [BeesAreAwesome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesAreAwesome/pseuds/BeesAreAwesome) and the [art is posted here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20812604)! Show Bees some love!! Thanks also to [mxlecter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxlecter/pseuds/mxlecter) who took a risky gander at this for me as beta <3 Last but not least, thank you to the mods for putting on this fantastic idea of a challenge!
> 
> This is _technically_ a 10-years-later!sequel, but you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT have to read the prequel, which is PWP. If you like [rapist!POV daddycest underage deflowering fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13935786), go for it, but absolutely no pressure (it’s summarized in like one sentence in this fic)
> 
> For the purposes of this fic, omegas are considered to be of legal age for non-mating sex at 18 and legal for mating at 24. Alphas and betas are legal for everything at 18. For reasons ;) **Alpha commands are in bold**. If you want more detail on tagging/triggers that you might encounter, [hit me up on tumblr](https://samdeanddlyumptious.tumblr.com/) :3 If you have trouble keeping in mind that Deanna is female, think of her mannerisms as similar to Eleanor Shellstrop lol
> 
> I release this into the wild. I hope y'all like it <3

Deanna tapped her final remaining card against the tear in the knee of her jeans, anticipation sparking in her as she watched Sam frown and bite his stupidly pink lips. She’d been paying attention. She had this in the bag. The punk was going down.

Sam let out a melodramatic sigh before putting a 4 of spades down and she whooped as she threw down her 4 of hearts.

“King me, bitch!”

Sam rolled his eyes and moved to add his cards to the discard pile for shuffling.

“Nuh-uh, we’re not done yet. Count your cards.”

He pointedly eyed the matrix of tidy 10-bean mounds nestled in the shag carpet around her criss-crossed legs. “You only needed like 5 more beans to officially win. I definitely had more than five points.”

“It’s a matter of principle, Sammy. Count ’em and then fork the goods over.”

“It’s Sam.”

A few moments later he haltingly handed her the entirety of his measly stock and she rewarded him with a grin.

“You’ve got an entire pound of pinto beans to your name. Congrats,” he said dryly.

“Don’t be grumpy cuz you’re jealous.” She scooped all her winnings across the sketchy carpet into a big pile. “I’m gonna wash y’all off soooo good,” she cooed at them, “and then you’re going to have a nice, long bath, and then some buddies of mine are going to join you, and then you’ll feed us for days, my pretties. Fuckin’ days—miserable days because Sam’s gassy, but days nonetheless.”

Sam shook his head, that fond, exasperated smile that kept making her heart beat a little faster lately spread across his face. She really hoped her face wasn't as flushed as it suddenly felt.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And you, little brother, are a sore loser. Where’d we put their bag?”

“Bar.”

She shuffled the worn cards before returning them to the tuck box that was more duct tape than anything else, trying to ignore the peek of hard muscle and treasure trail when Sam got up from their spot smack in the middle of the empty living room and stretched. They were going to have to start buying him tunics if he kept growing like his dream career was to be a Paul Bunyan statue.

Leveraging herself up without disturbing the beans was awkward, but would have been a hell of a lot harder only a few days ago.

“Man, I am never taking my arm for granted again.”

“You say that every time you get a cast off,” Sam said.

“And I mean it every time. For about a week. Hate having to go to the doctor.”

Although, this time her needing to heal up had happened when Sam was still in school, so she’d spent the time with him. Getting some one-on-one time with her dorky brother, getting to help him practice his Salutatorian speech, and getting to see him deliver it on stage had been well worth it. On a couple of really good days, when she felt like she was glowing with warmth from her time with Sam, she’d been almost grateful to the dearly departed ghoul that’d broken her arm.

Sam hummed skeptically at her response and she looked away again when he crouched down to corral her winnings into the bag they’d come in. Might need to buy him some new jeans, too.

“That why you haven’t gone to see about all the puking you been doing? And the naps?” He looked over at her as he rolled the bag closed. She’d thought she’d been doing a good job at keeping the puking bit on the down-low. Damn. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you seriously flagging like you were about to pass out around game 5, either. Fatigue and nausea sound like something there might be meds for to me.”

The mere mention of fatigue had her yawning so hard she felt it in her thighs. The adrenaline of her win was fading fast. She smacked her lips. “Told you: I don’t have a fever, it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Uh huh. That what you’re going to tell Dad when you have to run off in the middle of a hunt?”

The hair on the back of her neck raised and her insides felt 10 pounds heavier. She’d been having such a good day, too. What Sam had said finally got through to her tired brain as she set the cards on the bar and she froze when her feeling under the weather lately and her dad swirled together and something—something _awful_ occurred to her. Her lungs suddenly felt two sizes too small. No.

She managed to mutter a "whatever, literal loser," as she looked around at the dingy beige apartment completely devoid of anything entertaining besides a coffee maker. TVs should be a built-in amenity, like fridges. Surely with being in such a boring apartment—a boring _town_—it was perfectly normal to sleep so much. And sometimes drinking water at a new place made you sick before your body adjusted. Not usually in the way she’d been sick and usually not months later but, who knew, maybe they’d changed something up in the past couple weeks. And her tits were probably sore because she had a period or heat around the corner.

Actually, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had either.

Oh god.

“Speaking of naps, come wake me up in like an hour.”

“Fine.”

As soon as the bedroom door closed behind her, she took a shaky breath. Shit. Fuck. Her attempt at a deep, steadying breath caught on another yawn and she staggered to her side of the room. She would think more clearly after she recharged.

:::

Deanna hissed when the hangnail finally tore free and spat it out before staunching the little well of blood with her tongue.

No matter how many times she flipped through her drug store pocket calendar, the result was the same. Her dad wouldn’t have noticed because he’d been on so many hunts, thank god, but he was due back in the next day or two and she needed to know where she stood before then. Her first thought was to shoplift so there would be no witnesses or receipts of a purchase. But if she was caught then her dad would know she’d been trying to sneak, and that wouldn’t go over well. It was a small miracle that he was waiting for her to be legal this time, and she didn’t want to risk him getting suspicious or even more impatient.

No. She was getting away no matter what. And if she pussied out over something as small as getting a pregnancy test, she was fucked. She had to know where she stood. She could afford to shell out a few dollars. She would take the test in the store’s bathroom and throw everything, including the receipt, away right then and there. Maybe even flush it.

Plan in place, she tucked her calendar away in her duffel bag and found Sam perched on the sun-faded green patio fence reading the obnoxiously thick book he’d been working on for days.

“I’m headed to the corner store. You want anything?”

He didn’t even look up. “Tell me you’re finally getting some TheraFlu, dude. You say no fever, but I haven’t exactly trusted your judgment since that time you said for a week that your sore throat was just allergies and it turned out to be strep.”

Pulling him into a headlock to mess up his hair was impossible with him so tall, so she settled for tapping a knuckle hard against his knee, looking for a reflexive kick, and got swatted away.

“As much as I appreciate the condescending concern, I asked if _you_ wanted anything, not for your opinion on what I should get.”

Sam pretended to contemplate it, face scrunched up in a way that highlighted how much baby fat had melted off him to reveal a sharp, handsome face she barely recognized sometimes. Deanna kept trying to remember when her little brother had morphed into someone everyone would want to take to the prom, but it had snuck up on her, kept taking her breath away. He was all grown up and shit.

“A lifetime supply of coffee and my own car,” Sam finally said.

He’d be like a mystery in attractive wrapping one moment and her little shit of a brother the next. She clicked her tongue.

“So no.”

The smart-ass shouted a real request right as she closed the door, which meant she had a couple miles’ walk to decide whether she had heard him or not.

:::

The inside of the corner store for some godforsaken reason was trying to add “humid” to the summer heat, and Deanna’s skin felt tacky before the door even closed behind her. Bad pop music competed with the obnoxious ringing of the electronic slot machines occupied by a group of middle-aged men in dirty jeans and reflective vests. Their conversation lulled in favor of leering at her. She used to worry looks like that meant that the person Knew. Then she figured out that a lot of men and Alphas were just pigs. Deanna steered clear of the gamblers on her way to the back of the store.

Once she had Sam’s request in hand, she moved to her main aisle of interest and pretended to read the back of a tampon box while eyeing the two options for pregnancy tests. Blue for possibly-pregnant boys, pink for possibly-pregnant girls. The second she picked up the pink box to doublecheck it worked for omega girls, a voice behind her—

“Whatcha got there, sweetheart?”

She startled hard and panic seized her chest and thudded in her ears. Fuck. Motherfucking shit, she was supposed to have another day, why _the fuck_ hadn’t she been paying attention to surroundings, why hadn’t she hitchhiked to some fancy health store she normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, how the fuck could she have been so fucking stupid? She forced her shoulders to relax, willed her heart to stop racing, and slipped into her Good Omega face on her exhale before she turned.

He was too close, always too close. There were new scratches held tight with butterfly bandages on his cheek, and he looked more haggard than usual under the unforgiving light. She hated the sympathy and worry that twinged in her.

“Hey, daddy. I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow?”

“Decided to drive through the night. Been away too long.”

He pulled the box out of her hands, all poker face.

“The landlady asked me to get them for her,” Deanna said, her heart still ignoring the memo and thumping hard.

“The fifty-something-year-old landlady?”

“She may be kinda crazy, but she could also kick us to the curb if she wanted. I didn’t ask questions.”

Her dad grunted. He generally approved of her not asking questions

“Well, she’s a grown woman. She wants them that bad, she can come get some herself. But tell you what, now’s as good a time as any to show you how these work.” He tucked the box against his side to join the beef jerky. He knew she was lying. God fucking damn it, she couldn’t catch one godforsaken break, could she?

The gamblers weren’t subtle in sizing up the newcomer Alpha that had breezed in and convinced the omega they’d been eyeing to join him instead. The cashier was a woman more Deanna’s age, but she seemed entirely uninterested in anything but the soap opera on the tiny TV on the counter. As her dad paid for their items, Deanna wondered for the millionth time what would happen if she asked surrounding strangers for help. Nothing good, was her usual conclusion. Considering the leering sticky on her damp skin, she stuck by that.

But when her dad detoured to park behind an abandoned building on the way to the apartment and unzipped his jeans, she thought for the millionth time that it might be worth it.

:::

In the short time it took Deanna to brush the taste out of her mouth, Sam and their dad had started discussing dinner. She had half-expected Sam’s tantrum about how Dad hadn’t even called when he missed Sam’s graduation would show up again. Maybe he’d decided it wasn’t worth bringing up. As far as they knew, their dad hadn’t even remembered it’d been Sam’s senior year.

“Deanna and I already decided like a week ago that it’d be pizza tonight. If you want a say in our menu, how about you actually be here when we make it for once?”

Things like this weren’t even an issue when Dad fucked off and left them to their own devices. He had only been in the apartment for five minutes and Deanna already desperately missed it just being her and Sam.

“Sam.” She waited until he actually looked at her. “It’s not the end of the world if we change dinner plans. Cool it.”

Sam’s nostrils flared and his jaw shifted with his grinding teeth. Must be nice being able to express all that pain and disappointment and anger.

“You ever get tired of doing everything he says without a word of protest?” —Deanna’s sadistic bitch of a brain played an audio clip of her at 14, pleading ‘no’ to selectively deaf ears. She barely managed not to flinch.— “Cuz I sure as hell get tired of never getting any backup in this goddamn family.”

“Son, don’t make me send you to your room,” their dad said like Sam was half his actual age.

“Don’t bother.”

Deanna’s shoulders sagged as he passed her on his stomp to their shared room. She put the soda he’d left behind into the fridge.

“So,”—She pretended to be checking the fridge’s contents rather than acknowledge her father speaking.— “We have enough stuff for spaghetti? Or do I need to stop by an actual store before I crash for a while?”

:::

:::

The two bites she’d managed from dinner roiled in her stomach as Sam said goodnight and retreated once again to their room, this time turning the lights out. She tried to drag out washing the dishes—anything to delay the inevitable—but she could only rinse the same bowl so many times. Hands reluctantly dried, she turned and felt her throat get tight. Her dad’s sleeping bag had been unfurled in front of the small fire place and he was poking around to get the fire to sustain itself. Who the hell built a fire in the middle of June? People who liked to fuck their daughter in the open rather than in the privacy of a bedroom, apparently.

Once he was seemingly satisfied with the fire, he grabbed the plastic bag stamped with _Thank you come again!_ and shepherded her into his bathroom on the other side of the apartment from her and Sam’s. He walked her through the self-evident process, eyes like a hawk, like he was watching an athlete give a urine sample for drug testing, not giving her any space to breathe in the cramped room.

Deep down she already knew what her results would be. If this ended up being the one thing that would get him to stop hunting, or he decided he would be crowding and suffocating her the entire pregnancy, she might scream. She needed to be able to breathe, to go one fucking minute without worrying he was going to trap her before she could escape.

She didn’t even bother looking up when he called time.

“My baby girl’s having a baby! Why didn’t you call to tell me you suspected? Oh, so I wouldn’t get distracted while working, huh? Well, I swear I’ll be extra careful from now on. No need to worry about me, sweetheart.”

It figured that he’d find a way to fold her wanting a speck of privacy into his fucked up narrative of what he did to her and how she felt about it. Rough fingers turned her face towards his and swiped through the tear tracks.

“Don’t be scared, darlin’. It’ll all work out fine, just you see. But for now, we celebrate. Cuz you know what this means: no more condoms or pulling out. One less thing between us, at least for a few months—gotta enjoy it while we can!”

He pulled her up off the toilet and back to the living room. She hated doing it in living rooms. And the car. And beds. And bathrooms. Everywhere, really. Obviously. But living rooms were the most in-the-open, where she was the most exposed, at the most risk of Sam accidentally walking in. And this living room didn’t even have furniture, so there was nothing but them and a sleeping bag in the small room her dread made seem even smaller.

At least the fire gave her something to look at while trying to ignore the manipulation of her body and the pregnancy talk peppered into the usual repulsive rambling.

The carpet crunched against the slick outside of the sleeping bag under her—coarse chest hair was itchy over her skin—heat from the fire made half of her seem cold in comparison—hot breath on her nape, “God, gonna be so beautiful all swollen up with the baby I put in you, fucking gorgeous”— sudden draft and slimy feel of him pulling out—“Ride me, baby girl, lemme see you.”

The new position made her even more exposed to the room, but at least when he made her do it to herself she knew how to make it end as soon as possible. Plus, in this position he wasn’t slathered all over her and the only other contact between their bodies was her hands behind her, bracing her weight against his legs—unless, of course, he decided to cup the lowest part of her tummy, where something tiny was growing like a time-bomb, draining her of energy and nutrients like a vampire, changing her from the inside, commandeering her body like its sperm donor.

She couldn’t think about that.

She focused on the soft movement of her hair against her shoulders and back, the flex of her muscles, the soreness of her bare tits being jarred, the flickering flames and glowing Duralast—his hands shifted to her hips to jerk her down as he snapped up, throwing her off rhythm and balance enough that she had to steady herself with a palm against his chest. She could feel her jaw clenching. If he wanted her doing most of the work, he could damn well at least leave her to do it in peace.

An unhappy grunt—one of the few noises his standing Alpha order of "silence unless begging for it" allowed—punched out of her when he snapped up again and forced his knot in. Vile, fluid heat hit her insides and she instinctively tried to pull away, decade-old paranoia about pregnancy flaring up, and it was stupid, she was too late, she didn’t _want_ _this_—but she was stuck on his knot, could only move enough that some cum slipped out and trickled down her skin, and the tears she’d been managing to keep back since the bathroom fell.

“Where you trying to go?” A hand fisted in her hair and pulled her down towards him and movement caught her eye.

Every wall she’d built over the years vanished, crumbled to dust, leaving her raw and free falling as she held Sam’s wide-eyed stare taking in how disgusting she was. No. No, this couldn’t happen. Sam wasn’t ever supposed to— She hissed when hips ground up against her, pushing the knot even further, putting pressure on points where her body committed treason and sparked up her nerves, something she hadn’t been so aware of in years. She hadn’t _ever_ felt as deeply unclean and humiliated as she did with Sam’s eyes on her like this.

“Feel that? You were made to take my knot, baby girl.”

Sam twitched forward from the hallway, his sallow face a thunderstorm in firelight, and she shook her head as violently as she could with the hand still trying to hold her still. She was trembling all over when bare feet slowly retreated, and a silent sob so deep it hurt ripped through her. The hold on her hair turned her and a kiss was placed on her mouth, would-be-chaste if there wasn’t a cock pulsing cum inside her, if she wasn’t naked and used, if she wasn’t pregnant by her own fucking fath—

“Hey, now.” Callused hands rubbed against her back and she sobbed again.

How many times had she begged and prayed for her dad to stop, how many dollar store birthday candles and eyelashes had she blown on with a wish that Sam never, ever found out how much of a monster his last remaining parent was?

If there was an almighty God out there, it must fucking despise her.

“I know motherhood is scary, but you’re going to do great. Plus, your mom always said pregnant sex was amazing.”

:::

It was the better part of an hour before her dad let her crawl out of his reach and get dressed. Her limbs felt like they weighed fifty pounds each, everything between her shoulders and shins hurt, and her panties felt disgusting every time she moved, saturated with the cum seeping from both her holes. She only had as long as it took him to shower before she needed to be in pajamas in his bed. A small part of her hoped Sam had run away again so she wouldn’t have to face him, and a big part of her hoped he’d somehow gotten to sleep so she’d have time to figure out what to say. A decade of dreading him finding out had in no way prepared her for the deep shame and fear running poisonous through her veins, soaking into her muscles, pooling in her womb. The overall exhaustion that’d been haunting her lately and the ache between her legs weren’t exactly helping her concentrate, either.

Sure enough, Sam was standing between their sleeping bags, alert, waiting. She was so emotionally wrung out that she couldn’t even really feel the panic that surely shot through her when she saw her cell phone in his hand. The light switch jabbed into her shoulder when she leaned back to bar the door.

“You can’t tell anyone, Sam,” she whispered.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you started it, that you asked for it because you wanted it without any encouragement or pressure from him.”

His eyes looked black under the glint from the street light coming in through the curtain-less window. She didn’t say a word.

“Then telling someone is _exactly_ what I need to do. Preferably the police, but Uncle Bobby—”

“No, Sam! Give me the—”

Sam flinched back when she moved forward to take the phone. Right. Now he knew how dirty she was; she probably smelled like a cum rag. She really would have thought she was out of tears for the night.

“I don’t understand. How can you not want help?”

“I don’t need you to understand. I need you to listen to me and keep your mouth shut for now. Okay?”

His brow crinkled, and his mouth opened and closed without saying anything, but he dropped her phone onto her sleeping bag.

“Thank you.”

His brooding aura was almost audible as she slowly hedged into the room and grabbed her sleep clothes out of her bag.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Where do you think?”

His fingers twitched like he wanted the cell phone back. Or a weapon.

“We could leave. Right now. Grab our things, hot-wire a neighbor’s car, hide out for a couple days and then get as far away as we can.”

That was basically her plan, and she hated that telling him she just wanted a taste of independence before settling down to have pups wasn't going to work anymore. He'd know exactly why she was leaving and that she wasn't coming back. She stomped down the little fantasy of running off with him instead of spending another second with their dad. It was months too soon, too risky, too unprepared.

“I can’t.”

He called out her name when her hand hit the door handle. When she looked over her shoulder, she regretted every flicker of contemplation she’d ever had of telling him. Nothing was worth the grief and helplessness radiating from him.

She managed a wan smile. “’Night, Sam. If he leaves in the morning, we can talk then.”

She closed the door behind herself.


	2. I can't do this alone

The only good thing about having to get up before Sam so he wouldn’t catch her leaving their dad’s room in the mornings was that sometimes she got to see the sunrise. By the time Sam shuffled into the living room, though, the soft hues had faded and Deanna was staring out the glass patio door into uninterrupted monochrome blue, long-cold coffee in hand.

“Dad gone?”

She had heard the scuff of his jeans on the used-to-be-beige carpet but still startled so hard she added another stain to the mangy flooring.

“Shit.”

“Sorry. Paper towel?”

Was it worth bending over for? Worth waking up the aches, worth the risk of touching her swollen chest? They were in a bare bones apartment specifically because they hadn’t had to give a security deposit and were renting by the month. They weren't going to lose anything if she let the coffee soak in. She shook her head 'no'.

There was no way to tell if her heart beating so hard and fast was nerves or a side effect of producing extra blood to feed the growing parasite. Either way, she was keyed up as all hell. Despite still technically being a teenager, Sam was an early riser and usually wouldn’t have taken so long to emerge. Deanna would bet top dollar he’d stalled as long as he could to avoid The Conversation. Fuck knew she would rather dismember a dozen zombies with a plastic spork than have The Conversation.

“He caught wind of a cattle mutilation a few states over, probably be a week at least. You know how weird people get over livestock.” She headed to the kitchen to rinse the coffee off her hands. “You hungry?”

“Not really.” He leaned over the bar to watch her refill the coffee maker. “Not that I’m remotely complaining, but why didn’t he drag us with him? Usually summers are one long-ass road trip. Unless he missed my graduation because he completely forgot that school was about to be out.” Still stalling.

“No, he knows. I’m benched for the foreseeable future. I convinced him to let you stay behind to help me out.”

“Shit, are you okay? I thought you didn’t have a fever or anything!”

She clicked the coffee maker shut and didn’t turn to look at him. It was cowardly, but she couldn’t stand to see his reaction to the news.

“Not sick. Just pregnant,” she said, her voice cracking. She turned the machine on.

A deep, heavy couple beats passed.

“ Is it—“  _ _ his _ _ ?

There was a little boy hesitance in his question, like the answer would determine if he could hold on to the last shred of his innocence. Or maybe Deanna was projecting extra hard this morning.

She carefully inhaled, tried to inject some humor she didn't feel into her voice. “When you were like four you kept asking how come you didn’t have a little brother or sister to look out for like I did. Better late than never, I guess.”

“Jeeesus." She half expected to hear his forehead hit the laminate bar. "You’re __keeping__ it?”

“You wanna find out how he’ll react when it’s gone? Because I don’t.”

Sam was quiet as the coffee finished brewing and Deanna wondered if she’d gotten lucky, if he was satisfied or disturbed enough that he was going to let it drop for the time being. And then she almost spilled hot coffee on both of them when she turned and Sam was too fucking close. He caught her in eye contact too strong for her to do anything but freeze.

“Is that why you don’t want to leave? I was up all night trying to figure out why the hell you didn’t report him. If it was me—”

“Yeah, well, we’re not the same, Sam. If I’d reported it, we’d have ended up in foster care, maybe even separated. And even if we weren't—a pretty, traumatized omega like me? Who would do anything to protect her baby brother? Who might be looked at with suspicion if she kept reporting abuse? Hmm?” She finally managed to break away from his gaze. “At least here I could look after you and I knew what to expect. Plus, he’s our dad, man, and if I wasn’t here to stitch him up and—”

She was already talking about things she had thought she’d take the grave, but she still couldn’t make herself say “stand in for mom.” She and Dad were practically already in a mateship. The only things that would change if he bit her when she was of-age for mating was that it’d be legally and physically binding and it would be in the open. And she would be trapped either by him or by the emotional trauma of a broken or malnourished bond for the rest of her life. The mere thought of her in public with a bite mark or collar for all to see, of strangers seeing them and thinking she was happy, made it feel like she was about to break out in hives.

“Hey, Deanna?”

Waves rippled in her paper cup with her inquiring hum.

“How...how long has this been going on?”

She should probably lie. If it’d started when she was of legal age for normal sex, that would still be 4 years of ruminating on how fucked she was. But Sam was too perceptive to buy it.

“In general, it started when I was somewhere around 13. The first ‘insert tab A into slot B’ was at 14, as soon as he got back after my first heat. I imagine I was more manageable once I had to obey Alpha commands.”

She watched as Sam turned, blank-faced, and disappeared behind the bar. Another coffee—milk and sugar—in hand, she joined him on the living room floor, careful not to sit too close considering his flinch the night before, careful not to flinch herself as the aches flared back up. She handed him the cup.

“I’m sorry, Sam. You weren’t ever supposed to find out.”

“How the hell could you not tell me this? I mean, I was 8 when I found out about hunting. About what killed Mom! I’m your brother for fuck’s sake, you should have let me help!”

His cheeks were red, his hold on the cup was tremulous, and there was a sheen to his eyes. She felt like shit. What she should have done was found a way to talk Dad into keeping it to the bedroom.

“There’s nothing you could have done, kiddo.”

“I could’ve listened, like, emotional support or whatever. Helped you keep hope, not end up resigned to it.”

_ _ Resigned _ _ _ ? _ “Uh...what?”

“Last night, when I said we should run, you said you didn’t want to.”

“No I didn’t.”

“I __heard__ y—”

“I said I can’t.”

“Why not? Even if he reported you as missing, which he wouldn’t, no one would force you back to him if you explained the situation. And now I’m an adult, so I could petition for an emergency transfer of guardianship for these last few months if we really needed. So what the hell?”

Sam was agitated, so she softened further against the wall under the bar, modeling relaxation.

“You remember when you ran away when you were, like, 15? It took him all of 2 days to find you, and he didn’t have stolen credits cards, fake IDs, or stolen cars as leads. Nothing except knowing how you think. The man tracks things for a living, Sam, that’s what the hell. I can’t risk him finding me and locking me down while he still technically has legal guardianship rights over me or could challenge anything you set up. I won't risk that.”

Sam’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t talk back.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m resigned to being his fucktoy for the rest of my life.”—Sam flinched— “I will hide out in an omega shelter until I can get a shiny new identity or get smuggled into Mexico if I have to. I’ll join a fuckin’ _convent_. I will do whatever it comes down to. But I’d really like to, y’know, not let him ruin the rest of my life or get anyone else dragged into this mess. I just gotta figure out how.”

“I could kill him.”

His face was stone cold serious, and Deanna had the sickening feeling he wasn’t just being dramatic. Or it could be morning sickness again. She’d dry heaved twice already since waking up.

“No—Sam.” Lord grant her the patience to talk down rash little brothers. “No one’s killing anyone, okay? It’s not worth it. If you wanna help me out, then don’t start shit with him and help me figure out an escape plan on a budget.” He was looking glumly down at his coffee now, like a depressed puppy. “And...Sam?” He looked up at her. She could feel her pulse fast and steady in her neck. “I—I don’t want this to change things between you and me, y’know? I’m not any different.”

“Why would that change? Everything gross and fucked up about this is on him, Deanna, not you. I know that.”

To say or not to say. “It’s just that, last night, you moved back when I barely even took a step forward.”

“Oh, that, um...” He glanced away and rubbed the back of his neck, licked his lips. “That was because, like I said, I was trying really hard to wrap my head around...y’know...and sometimes it’s hard to concentrate when you’re in my space.”

Call her crazy, but that sounded kind of like—

“But it’s nothing new, don’t worry about it. And," he heaved a sigh, "I guess I’ll try to keep calm around Dad, even if I really, really want to punch him out.”

“Promise?

“I promise to try.”

“Good, cuz I lied. Sorta.”

“What?!”

“About him being __gone__ gone. He’s out finding a motel for us to move into. Guess I’m not worth furniture unless I’m knocked up. I really did convince him to let you stay behind, though. And he does have a bovine-themed hunt to get to.”

Sam thunked his head against the wall and gave her a look bordering on bitchy. She barely kept from smiling.

“Stop lying to me, damn it.”

Pointing out that not disclosing something was not the same as lying probably wouldn't help her case, so she raised a hand in surrender. “Last one, promise. I needed you to be somewhere in the neighborhood of calm for this talk, man. But he'll be back soon-ish. You good?”

“Yeah. I mean, no, absolutely not. But yeah.” He leaned over to bump shoulders with her and her breath caught and her stomach did a happy flip. He really wasn’t disgusted by her. “Sorry for making you comfort me even though it’s happening to you.”

The cheesy smile that wanted to seize her face barely let itself be reined in. “What are big sisters for. Make sure you’re packed and ready to go. I’m gonna try to squeeze in one last nap on this gross-ass floor.”

“...You have a sleeping bag,” Sam said.

She groaned as she braced herself against the gloss-finish wall and moved up into a crouch. If she was already feeling like a senior citizen at 7 weeks, she sure as shit wasn’t looking forward to 7 months.

“Yeah, on this gross-ass floor. I can feel the carpet through the bag.”

“What is this, the Princess and the Pea? This a pregnancy thing?”

“Fuck off,” she said, lightly smacking his cheek as she passed, and letting the grin take hold when he smacked back at her calf.

There weren't words for the awesome relief soothing her nerves as she settled for her nap. The only good thing in her life had survived one of her greatest fears: Sam Knew and didn't feel pity or disgust towards her.

Maybe The Powers That Be didn't _completely_ hate her after all.

  


:::

  


Deanna wasn’t sure how long she got to nap, just that she was groggy when Sam nudged her awake and helped her roll up her sleeping bag. They crowded into the Impala like they had thousands of times, except this time her dad had a pleased little smile that irked the shit out of her. But she was thankful that Sam was keeping his quiet seething to a minimum, at least.

Instead of a motel like she’d been expecting, their dad took them straight to a used car dealership. They passed what seemed like 500 ancient Subarus before they reached a little corner of a dozen quality American-made cars and a handful of Fords.

“You buying us a car or something?” The town was too small for public transportation and she supposed it would be best if they had their own vehicle in case any pregnancy emergencies came up. Ambulances were atrociously expensive.

They got out when when they finally stopped near the dealership building tucked in the far back, and Deanna watched in confusion as John handed Sam the keys to the Impala.

“Take good care of her, son. Ask Deanna if you need help with maintenance stuff, okay?”

Sam glanced over at her, nervous as he damn well should be. Why the fuck would Dad—was it not Deanna who knew the car inside and out, who showed actual interest in it, who— Goddamn sexism was what it was and now it was Deanna who was quietly seething.

Their dad pulled another set of keys out of his pocket, grabbed his bags, and headed to a monster of a GMC. Of course he had to have a metal phallus of a vehicle.

“Deanna, ride with me. Sammy, follow us to the motel.”

At least she wasn’t already further along, or else getting up into the behemoth would have been hell. Any vehicle that you need to hoist yourself into shouldn’t be allowed to exist.

“Where’d you get the money for this, Dad?”

Jesus, it was loud, too.

“Huh? Oh, went ahead and cashed out your dowry, figured you won’t be needing it,” he said with a rakish grin that made her chest hot with anger.

“I didn’t even know I had a dowry,” she said evenly.

“Yeah, your mom insisted. That and a college fund for the both of you.”

“That still there?”

“Ammo.”

“Right.”

They pulled up to a red light and her dad shifted to pull a thick wad of cash from his pocket.

“ Here’s the rest of it—only needed a down payment. Use this for getting a check-up, vitamins, clothes, whatever you’re going to need to tide you over. I’ll put in more hours hustling along the road, save up some for when the baby comes. I know you two were expensive as hell when you were little.” The light turned green but he looked full at her while letting off the gas. Cocky of him to do considering he couldn’t possibly have learned how well the truck handled in such a short time. “Listen, I have no doubt that you’ve been faithful to me, sweetheart.”  _ _ Faithful _ _ _ ??  _ “But I have needs while I’m on the road, y’know. So when you go in for that checkup, make sure to get a  V D test, too. I’ll get one too. I’m sure we’re fine, but we don’t want the kid coming out already sick.”

Why the fuck did she feel hurt by that? They weren’t actually in a relationship, she shouldn’t feel upset if he fucked other people, only anger over why the fuck couldn’t he fuck __only__ other people. But there was still a little sting of betrayal among all the bitterness and resentment. Like she’d been fucking cheated on. How pathetic was that.

“I’ll try to stop by between hunts more often, too—”

“No!” Her dad glanced over at her, face too neutral. Shit. “I mean...I’m pregnant, not on my death bed. And Sam can help me out fine. The more evil that’s gone before it’s born the better, right? Plus—I mean, probably not going to happen in 9 months when it hasn’t happened in 18 years—but it’d be a load off of my mind if you took out what got Mom before I end up having nightmares about being in her place, y’know. So. Don’t worry about it if you can’t stop by real often.” Not like he ever cared before.

She held her breath and watched him from her periphery. No obvious signs of upset.

“Alright. Like I said earlier, got a lead on cattle mutilation. Maybe we’ll get lucky, huh?”

The rest of the drive was short, but he hummed cheerily to himself for all of it, and Deanna was about to crawl out of her skin by the time they pulled into a dime-a-dozen motel parking lot. Her dad handed her two little paper sleeves with key cards as Sam pulled up in the Impala.

“Room 114. Seriously, keep me updated. Watch out for Sam and call me if he gives you trouble.”

“Yessir.”

“And take good care of our pup!”

Thank god she was on her way out of the goddamn truck and he couldn’t see her flinch. She smiled and waved as he drove off. Sam turned to her once the truck was out of sight.

“You okay? I don’t know why the hell he gave me the car keys—”

She ignored him in favor of grabbing her shit and getting into the room. She slammed the cash and keys on the dresser and dropped immediately onto the bed closest to the door, didn't even care that the comforter practically crunched under her.

“Deanna—”

“Dude, I’m not three, and I’ve managed this long without you even knowing something was up, remember? Back off.” She tossed her boots to the floor and settled under the slick-stiff comforter and coarse top sheet. “A lot of shit has happened in, like, less than 24 hours, I haven’t slept on a proper bed in more than two months, and that is literally all I want to do now. So don’t bother me unless you’ve got food.”

“I—”

“Zzzzt.”

  


:::

  


The next few days passed in a smear of sleep, food, throwing the food back up, and hazy contemplation. It wasn’t worth the risk to do anything but wait last minute to escape, which meant she was stuck with the pregnancy. What she would do with it after would have to wait until she was safe. She would have to drop off the map completely in order for Dad to not be able to track her—chop her hair off and buy a bunch of cheap wigs or something, a car would be good for distance but too easy to track, same for most public transit, too, probably. She’d need money and a head start. And then there was the issue of Sam not exactly being inconspicuous at 9 feet tall. Assuming he wanted to come with. She’d be running and hiding for the rest of her life, and he’d always wanted the exact opposite of that. Every time she’d let herself think about how doing all this to escape could lead to her never seeing or talking to Sam again her mind skipped tracks completely. It didn't compute. But if that was a possibility, she needed to brace for it.

Gentle movement of her dirty hair brought her out of a half-dream of her and Sam at the side of a desert road with their thumbs out. Sam was crouched at the side of the bed, brushing her hair out of her face, the low lamp light making deep shadows in his scrunched brow. He was beautiful—worried—and she wanted to touch him, soothe him.

“Seriously, you’ve been asleep for like 12 hours straight. Again.”

“Been thinkin’.” And in the end, there was only one thing she knew without a doubt about the situation with Dad.

“Uh oh.”

“I know I said no one would be killing anyone. But I would literally rather be rotting, worms munching on me, than mated to him. If...If he gets me, and you have anything resembling a shot at me, I need you to take it.”

Everything but anger dropped out of his expression, and self-hatred for putting that on her baby brother cleared out the last of her sleep haze.

“ What the  _ _ fuck _ _ , Deanna.”

“Promise me, Sam. He could stop me with a word. With you, he’d have to physically stop you.”

“I’m not going to kill you! Jesus fucking Christ!”

“A mercy killing.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I be killing him instead?”

Because that would be straight up murder versus assisted suicide.

“Much harsher prison sentence for killing an Alpha.”

“No.”

“Sam.” She wiggled her hand out from under the covers and touched his cheek. She wished more than anything that he'd had the happy, healthy family life he deserved. “Please.”

Puppy eyes bore into her but she didn't waver. She'd never been so serious in her life. A heavy sigh rebounded off her palm and her chest ached at Sam's sad, determined expression.

“Absolutely last resort. You let me help with literally any other possibility. I’ll drive you to that convent myself.”

“Deal.”

With that sorted, it was time to stop wallowing. She’d been dealing with Dad for nearly half her life. All she could do with the pregnancy for the moment was survive and not fuck it up. Sam knowing was awkward and she felt like shit about it, but she now had help when she’d been thinking solo before. Things were what they were. She had to make the best out of it.

She stretched and patted Sam. “Alright, man, good talk. I feel crusty. Please tell me this place has good water pressure.”

  


:::

  


A decent shower may as well be a miracle in Deanna's book. Time to think, soothing warmth and pressure, scrubbing away the past: awesome. Good enough this time around that she wasn't too skeeved out to check her tummy in the mirror. It'd be a while before she really started showing. She would probably buy some ugly-ass potato sack dresses that'd make no one want to look at her. Her third trimester would be in the winter, so she might be able to get a hideous bulky sweater or two as well. She looked exactly the same as always when she put her shirt on. Well, except for how much bigger her rack already was. If her favorite shirts ended up too stretched out to wear later she was gonna be pissed.

“What is this, anyway?" Sam called out from the main room, like she could see whatever the hell he was talking so vaguely about. "I’ve been using some of it, I’m assuming that’s okay.”

Deanna pulled her damp ponytail tight as she exited the bathroom. Sam dropped the cash Dad had given her back onto the dresser next to the seashell lamp. Ah.

“Apparently I’d had a dowry, and Dad decided to help himself.”

The softness of her outer shirt was worth the slightly uncomfortable warmth. The buttonholes started struggling when she tried to do it all the way up, though. New bras really weren’t going to wait much longer. A month ago she’d thought she might be able to get away with binding her chest and drawing on stubble when the time came to disappear, but her body had already been hijacked enough to cause complications. Fuck, she was going to be ready to pop by her birthday. She sure as shit better not be bedridden by this clusterfuck when it was time to jet.

“I got a job.”

Sam was still at the dresser, looking pissed. Deanna started lacing up her boots.

“Is that right?”

“Local fast food place across town, part-time. You said we can’t leave because he might find us. But I figure we can make some new fake IDs and paperwork, some basic disguise stuff, and hitchhike, throw darts at a map, stay away from public areas as much as possible. Hard to track us if no one really sees us. So I figure save up some money for supplies and prenatal vitamins, and then get gone. Should only take a few weeks, I think, if you were going to use that money for the same kind of thing.”

“That’s not—.” She let her foot fall bodily to the floor and turned towards Sam, who was leaning against the dresser with crossed arms, ready for a challenge. “We can’t actually survive out in the wilderness. There’s going to be people around and most people, if told that their Alpha was looking for them, would give up a fleeing omega in a heartbeat. Especially if he tells them he still has technical bullshit guardianship; especially if he tells them I'm carrying his pup. If police get involved, they’ll fingerprint me and know I’m only 23.

“I __will not__ risk being caught and handed back over to him before I’m finally, legally my own person, because otherwise he literally won’t let me out of his sight until he mates me. Probably zip tie me to plumbing or some twisted shit. That—and that I'd really like to talk to as few different people about all this pregnancy stuff as I possibly can—is why I’m hanging tight, Sam. At least for now.”

He was frowning. “But—”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t plan. Hitchhiking might work, except a very pregnant omega will probably cause a lot of concern, especially if we were to split up like we probably should every once in a while.” She sighed. If only she knew people would mind their own damn business. “But it’s definitely a start.”

“And in the meantime?”

“You said you have a job, should keep you busy. I’m gonna have pregnancy shit every once in a while, we got cable.” She shrugged. Her stir-crazy peak had come a month into being benched for her arm, and then she'd settled into finding random shit to amuse herself with. Every once in a while she felt a little bad for not being out saving lives, but there were other ways to help people. She'd ask around, no big deal.

“No, I mean when Dad comes back.”

“What about it?”

Sam’s arms un-tucked to gesture incredulously. “We’re really going to pretend everything’s fine? I don’t know how well I can do that, Deanna. He’s not even in the room right now and I want to shoot him.”

“Easy, tiger.” She relaxed her posture, braced herself with her palms against the comforter, and waited until Sam mirrored her with the dresser. “I guess we just gotta hope he doesn’t stop by very often.”

Fingers tapped against dark lacquer. “I think we should call Bobby, ask for help.”

Well that came out of left field. “Um. You forgetting the shotgun involved the last time we saw him?”

“He chased Dad off with a shotgun, not us. He’ll help us if we ask.”

There wasn’t any nervous twitching or loose body language of 'just spit-balling here'. He was confident of what he was saying. Suspiciously so.

“How do you figure?”

There was the shiftiness back. “Okay. Confession. Promise me you won’t get mad.”

“Well that really depends on how angry you’re about to make me, Sam.”

“I know that he’ll help us, and that he can keep a secret, because he’s been letting me use his house as a mailing address for college applications.”

She shot up off the bed. “You what?!”

“I was going to tell you in a couple weeks. I got accepted to Stanford. Full scholarship.”

Sam’s eyes were bright with excitement even though the rest of him was somber. She knew she should be proud, but the only thing clamoring in her head, tightening in her chest, was—

“You were going to leave me?" It shouldn’t hurt considering she’d been planning on doing the same, minus the college education. But it felt like a sucker punch.

“I never said you weren’t invited. I wanted to give you time to cool down and actually think straight about maybe coming with me. I was kind of assuming you wouldn’t, though, since I thought you and Dad were two peas. Sorry. But I __was__ going to ask. And I’m asking now.”

“Asking what?”

“We call Bobby. Either ask if we can stay with him—until the semester starts, or you staying until after your birthday—or if he can help keep Dad on the road. The semester starts in August, but I’m not leaving you behind with Dad. If you don’t want to go to Bobby’s, I could delay a semester, we make it to Stanford a couple weeks before your birthday, and pray Dad doesn’t catch up. Or I delay a year, give us more time to lose him before we settle in California. Once we’re there, we can get a restraining order. You shouldn’t have to run your entire life.”

He seriously thought a restraining order was going to help anything?

“If he finds me, he’ll only need a few minutes to mate me. Restraining order won’t do shit against that.”

“A padlocked collar, then, or a chastity belt.”

Jesus, what happened to her life not being ruined?

“Then all he’d have to do is threaten you and I’d take them off.”

His hands flew up again in frustration. “Damn it, Deanna, if you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears!”

She didn’t like the thought of being in a city or of how many people would know Sam’s name if he went to school. But it was a hell of a lot better than a convent. And California was full of hippies. If there was any state she might stand a chance of not being handed over like chattel, it was probably that one. And Sam actually wanted her with him. She supposed she should be grateful he hadn’t been intending to completely betray her by skipping out for some bright and shiny normal future.

“Maybe it’d work. But I still say we stay put as long as possible. The longer we can hold on to the element of surprise, the better.”

“We calling Bobby?”

“No specifics. But sure, why the hell not give it a shot. It certainly couldn’t hurt if Dad was on the road as much as possible.”

  


:::

  


Much to Deanna’s surprise and Sam’s s mug s atisfaction, Bobby agreed to help without hesitation and without asking for an explanation besides to teasingly demand why it took so long for Deanna to call him. He would keep an eye out for anything looking even remotely like it could be a demon and suck it up to call John and send him that way.  And like that, Deanna could breathe a little easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback welcome and often cherished~


	3. sing

Sam had his first shift two days after they called Bobby. Deanna sent him off with a sarcastic teary, tissue-waving goodbye and then settled in to watch a bunch of crap TV while Sam wasn’t around to get teasing material out of it.

Six and a half hours of a Dr. Sexy marathon later, the key to the door beeped and she hurriedly switched it over to the news.

“How was your first day in your dorky-ass job, honey?” Deanna sing-songed when the door opened without looking away from the car chase on the TV.

“I survived,” Sam said, deadpan in a way that made Deanna look over. And promptly bust out laughing.

“Dude, what the fuck is that??”

He was wearing a collared shirt that looked like it'd had paint mixes that’d gone horribly wrong flung at it, followed by matte triangular confetti.

“My uniform.”

“Is the goal to distract from how bad the food is? Because my eyes and brain feel personally attacked right now.”

“If you’re going to be like that, maybe I shouldn’t have brought you food.”

Sure enough the hand not wrapped around the shirts he’d left in was holding a large paper bag. Shit, if she’d known he had food….

“You’d starve a pregnant omega like that?”

She settled at the little table and looked through the grease-stained bag while Sam sighed and slumped dramatically across from her.

“I know I’m not that out of shape even if I haven’t been hunting that much, but standing for 6 hours straight and running back and forth handing people shit is exhausting. I have a newfound respect for Sonic carhops and waitstaff.”

“I agree on respect for civilians. You, though? I think you might just be a wimp.” She hoarded four tacos to herself.

“Jerk.” He ruffled his hair, threw down his blissfully monochrome cap, and snagged the bag from her. “At least my boss is nice. I told them I was working to support my single, pregnant sister, and he about started crying. Told me I can take food for three at the end of my shifts if I want. Said it’s not real nutritious, but it’s still calories.”

“He...he’s giving us food? This food is free?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy fucking jackpot! Maybe I need to go get a job at a car parts place. Or an adult video store.” She took a huge bite to finish off her last taco. “And if he said three, start taking him up on that. I could eat like another six of these.”

Sam chuckled, shaking his head. “That’s not cuz you’re pregnant, that’s cuz you’re a bottomless pit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you legit too full to eat more.”

“Look, just cuz I eat like a warrior—”

Sam barked out laughter so hard he sprayed shredded lettuce.

“Dude, gross!”

“Sorry, sorry. You’re….”

There was that affectionate look again, this time from under his lashes as he cleaned up the lettuce. It got a little harder to breathe and her face was warm as she kept the eye contact, too intense, too long.

There was a tiny furrow in his brow when he finally looked away, and her arousal turned easily into fear. If he caught on to the fucked up things she’d been feeling around him lately, she was screwed. It was a miracle that he wasn't going to leave her after finding out what damaged goods she was; she couldn't push it. She needed to keep herself under control.

With all the fucked up shit he was having to take on now that he knew, the last thing he needed was to find out his big sister might be in love with him.

  


:::

  


As exhausting as Sam may have found his day, it was still weird for him to be as quiet as he was in the evening. He didn’t quite have a cloud over his head, but he wasn’t paying any attention to the TV and he hadn’t turned a page in an hour. Her worry from lunch resurfaced. But even if he had caught on and was angsting about how to let her down gently or something, Sam brooding was something she’d never been good at leaving be.

Surprise replaced the frown on his face when she plopped down next to him against the headboard.

“Alright, spill.”

“What?”

“You, doing an Eeyore impression over here. Something happen at work? You didn’t seem moodier than usual earlier, so what gives?”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

His shifty eyes and curling of a page corner broadcasted "lie!" like a neon sign.

“Sam.”

“I don’t want you to feel weird around me." His gaze flickered to her for a split second. He looked guilty. What the fuck could he possibly feel guilty about? "It's okay, I'm handling it. Really.”

She repeated his name, then laid a hand on his knee when he still refused to make eye contact.

“You said you wanted to help me, even if that only meant listening. You think I feel any different? If something’s bothering you, lay it on me, man.”

It took him almost a solid minute of looking conflicted before he sagged a little and stared down at his hands on the book in his lap.

“ It’s just. That night...when I walked in...” Her stomach sunk. As big a game as she talked, she really didn’t like thinking about specifics between her and Dad more than she had to. “I didn’t realize what was happening at first. All I saw was you, naked and moving like that, all lit up by the fire, and—I mean, you were being  _ _ r _ _ —” Her breath caught. She’d never said the word. Never even let herself think it. Sam glanced over at her, hummingbird quick. “I’m so sorry, Deanna, I know it’s so fucked up of me, but I—I can’t stop thinking about those few seconds.”

Deanna's pulse sped up and she felt five degrees warmer before her brain even caught up with the information. Oh. Holy shit. That was the opposite of what she’d been worried about.

“ And I mean, he’s a  _ _ monster _ _ . And I keep thinking: how am I any different from him?”

If he didn’t look so distraught, Deanna would have laughed. What a stupid question.

“Sam," she said lightly, matter-of-fact, "you and me are never having sex.”

Immediately Sam started shaking his head, eyes squeezed shut. “N-no, of course n—I’m sorry I even brought it up, it’s stupid, I’ll keep trying to, to forget, and—”

She relocated her hand to turn his face towards hers. His cheeks were so red that it’d be adorable if he didn’t also look miserable. He startled slightly, eyes searching, when she leaned closer and smiled up at him.

“See? Nothing like him.” She waited a moment for it to sink in, for his face to relax, before she spoke again, letting all the usual flirty teasing seep into her voice that she had occasionally worried was inappropriate. “And usually I’d say a pair of tits are a pair of tits, but I always thought you were a prude, Sammy.”

The poor guy looked caught off guard long enough that she had to fight to keep her smile easy. She shifted her weight to ease back into sisterly space, scared of pushing things, but as soon as she pulled her hand back Sam caught her wrist. He could probably feel how fast her pulse was. The thought was embarrassing and weirdly hot.

"I keep telling you I'm not a prude. I'm just picky."

His eyes darted over her face, gauging. He was testing the waters. Not a good time to let the incredulity that his pickiness settled on his pregnant mess of a sister show through. She was receptive, she was open.

"And if I actually __like__ the person, prudishness is the furthest thing from my mind."

"So there really is a hormonal teenage boy under all that hair."

He didn't respond, just held the intense eye contact they too often got caught in. Guess she knew why, now. On some level she knew she should be shutting this down, letting Sam down gently, protecting him from her and from heartache. Sam may be nothing like their father, but that didn't mean Sam and her being into each other wasn't fucked up all on its own. If she was selfish and let this happen, it could blow up spectacularly, and she'd lose the only thing she really cared about.

But what if they made it work? They were both stubborn as shit, knew each other inside and out, and had stayed close through all manner of fucked up situations—the one they were in now was __fucked up__ and yet here they were. Most happily married couples probably had fuck-all on them in comparison to that. If anyone could power through rough patches together, it was them.

So then the question was how the hell does one initiate something more with one's sibling?

She leaned close again, licked her lips, and felt a boost of confidence when Sam looked down at her mouth without a falter in intensity.

"Do you wanna see them again?"

All the intensity fell in the face of confusion. Shit.

"Huh?"

"My tits. Wanna see them again?"

"You said—"

"To prove a point. Plus, I didn't say 'fuck me here and now'. Tell me you're not one of those douchebags who thinks everything has to end with sex or there's no point."

"No, that's—" He tilted his head, squinting a little, and Deanna barely managed to not bristle at being looked at like a science experiment that had done something unexpected. "I mean... Are you offering because of trauma? Like, you don't know how to say 'no'? Cuz I don't want you to feel like you have to."

Oh wow. "Okay, first of all: that's insulting and I'm insulted. Second of all: no, it's not a trauma thing, how many creeps have you seen me shoot down? I'm perfectly capable of saying 'no'. I say 'no' all the goddamn time. And c) I'm saying 'yes'. You didn't actually ask, but my answer is yes. So. Do you wanna see my tits again, yes or no?"

"It's not that simple, Deanna—"

"It reeeally could be."

"We need to talk about this first."

"We reeeally don't."

Sam's pursed-mouth Look was admonishing, which was no fun. Also her side was starting to cramp.

"Look me in the eyes and tell me you're saying yes because __you__ want it, would've wanted it even if I'd kept my mouth shut. Because otherwise, even if I'm not like him, the situation will be basically the same."

"You've got a real gift for killing the mood, y'know."

He didn't waver.

She rolled her eyes so hard her eyelashes fluttered. "Fine, I'll indulge your freaky eye contact fetish." She stared him down, pulse thundering in his hold, and told it to him straight, "You've always been brave and smart and a sassy little bitch. And then lately you just...grew up, and now you're also kind of a strapping young man even though you're also kind of a beanpole. And apparently, somehow, that does it for me." She finally glanced away. "I've actually been kinda worried that things would get awkward because you'd pick up on me staring or flirting or whatever."

"No, you've always kind of done all that."

"Well there you go: the pervertedness was inside me the whole time," she said with sarcastic warmth.

Sam stared at her for a moment longer before giving a tiny nod, a signal that he believed her. "Same with me. It got harder to ignore when I had an actual visual, even though that visual was super fucked up."

She pulled her hand out of his grasp and plucked the collar of her t-shirt. "I know how to fix that."

"There a reason you wanna skip to second base?"

That was her boy, too smart for his own good. Decent kissing required her participation. She had years of practice of lying back, letting the other person do what they wanted. Hopefully it'd be a pleasant experience for once if it was Sam. But her actually participating was a whole other bear.

What if Sam complimented the skills she'd been forced to learn? What if she froze up and he thought it was his fault or meant she'd been lying about wanting it? What if she was actually terrible at it because her dad liked that it made her seem naive and so hadn't corrected it?

Lying back and letting things happen was a lot less complicated. But Sam wanted it to be different with him than with their dad. Deanna wanted it to be different. That meant stepping up to the plate.

"I figured that way I wouldn't be scared off by how bad a kisser you might be."

Sam scoffed and shook his head with a smile. "You're such a jerk. It's a wonder I want to kiss you at all."

It really was.

"Alright, hot shot, lay it on me, then."

She laid down and wiggled to settle against the pillows and comforter. Sam's eyes were hot but the tilt if his head was curious. She murmured that she was going to cramp if she kept sitting like she had been. Sam stretched out to lay beside her. Her breathing picked up as he shifted to all but loom over her and she hoped to God it was arousal and not fear, that she'd be able to separate the two for him.

His hand was big sliding across her ribs to hold her waist and goosebumps sparked her nerves. Almost definitely arousal. Warmth radiated off him when he leaned close. It didn't feel oppressive, and that gave her courage to finally meet his eyes. He looked intense and a little predatory, but he looked like Sam. He was _seeing_ her, so much more present than the animal hunger with which her dad and countless others had looked at her.

"If you want me to stop, just say so. Or shove me." Her dad's standing Alpha order had made her unable to speak in less charged situations, so she rolled her eyes in acknowledgment. "I won't be upset or take it personally or whatever."

Liar. But a sweet liar.

He went easily when she reeled him in and soon they were sharing the softest kiss of her life, pressure and movement barely there but so, so sweet. Different enough that she felt safe closing her eyes, teasing enough that it made her insides quiver in anticipation. The teasing edge fell away when she put her hands in his hair and Sam tucked closer, harder, with a groan. His hand on her jaw felt possessive but gentle, like she was being cradled rather than held in place. Despite that, she had to open her eyes again when the kisses turned hungry. Soft hair against her hands, Sam’s eyebrows, no facial hair, tenderness underlying the assertive movements and yet she could feel herself drifting. She couldn’t see him. Maybe if she could see him.

He didn’t go quite as easy when she nudged him back, but he went. His pupils were already blown wide, his cheeks flushed, his mouth already a little puffy. He looked like a wet dream and, god, how she wished she could appreciate that fully. It wasn’t fair.

Hot eyes darted down when she undid a button of her over shirt, and long, deft fingers took over before she could even reach a second. She stared at him concentrating on his task, rooted herself in the sparks that lit under her skin every time his knuckles brushed her stomach. When the last button was undone, his hot hand dipped under her t-shirt and slid up slow and firm to the bottom of her bra. She could feel herself starting to get wet as she moaned.

He helped her strip down and she groaned when she unclasped her bra, soreness springing up without the compression. She nodded away Sam’s question if she was okay, tossed the garment aside, and settled back down.

“Jesus, Deanna.”

Sam looked nearly dumbstruck staring down at her. They were just tits, she wasn’t sure what the big deal was, but she could feel her face warming up anyway.

The soft brush of his fingertips against the side of her breast sent shocks through her—crossed wires of sore tenderness and pleasurable sensitivity—and her mouth opened on a quiet gasp. Sam touched her gently, and she did her best to catalog all the ways it was Sam, to make the tension in her shoulders ease up. Then he ducked down while she was blinking to use his mouth and Deanna lost him.

The attention to her tits was on an uncomfortable edge between pleasure and pain, one she’d always hated—hated when she felt anything close to good when things were being done to her. She squirmed slightly when a thumb pulled over one of her nipples and focused on the ceiling until the hand put exactly the wrong kind of pressure against sore flesh and she flinched and let out a quiet “ow.” They both froze.

Sam pulled away and stared down at her, all concern and worry. “Shit, I’m sorry. What hurt?”

It was Sam. It was Sam, and she’d said something.

“...Sammy?”

She shot up, nearly headbutting her brother, and put a hand to her throat. She said his name again, normal volume, and could feel the vibrations in her palm, could hear it. She laughed, maybe a little hysterically.

“_Mein frère_, I can talk!”

The bafflement was back on Sam’s face and Deanna couldn’t even feel bad for confusing him—she could talk! There was no nauseating feeling blocking her vocal cords like a cork stopper, no sudden breathlessness, nothing.

“There’s like three things wrong with that, but mostly: what are you talking about?”

“The first time he knotted me, I screamed bloody murder. Like ‘neighbors are gonna call the cops’ loud. So he gave me a standing Alpha command to be silent during any of our ‘alone time’. Well—unless I wanted to beg for it, which _fuck that_. I haven’t been able to talk during sex stuff for years! I guess he made it too specific to him.”

When she looked over to grin at Sam, she found him pale, glossy-eyed, and looking like his puppy had died. Crap. Her excitement at the discovery swooped down. Looked like she had him beat on mood-killing skills.

“You asked.”

“I know I did. I just wish the answer was different.”

“Sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Deanna,” he said firmly. “Not in any of this. Please don’t not-tell me. I wanna know what you’ve been going through, especially so I know how to not bring up bad memories.”

Good fuckin’ luck with that.

She should probably tell him about the zoning out thing. That’s what people do, right? Talk to each other, find solutions? But he might be insulted that she couldn’t remember it was him during, might think he was doing something wrong, or might feel like he’d been right in thinking he was like their dad.

When she laid back down Sam tucked in against her side and put his head on her shoulder like he was 5 again, except the arm on her waist reached all the way across her and was a comforting weight against her bare skin.

“Tell me everything, Deanna.”

Well, shit.

  


:::

  


Over the next week they tried multiple approaches to help Deanna stay in the moment at first through third base with inconsistent results. She was doing her best to memorize the feel, the smell, the sound of Sam. Her sweet little brother was unfailingly patient with her, genuinely didn’t even get upset when she occasionally called for a complete halt halfway through to doublecheck he would stop. She'd gaped at him the first time she'd done it when his only response after checking she was okay was to calmly ask if she minded if he finished himself off. Turned out Sam getting himself off was quite a sight and she didn't mind one iota.

She didn't have as much luck. Sam suggested she try practicing relaxing by masturbating while he was at work. It took her three attempts to even get in the same postal code as an orgasm—something she knew she could do, something she knew exactly how to cause due to her dad having exploited it every once in a while. But that was the whole problem, wasn't it?

She wished she could be patient with herself. It fucking sucked wanting so much to give Sam a normal sex life where he wasn’t walking on eggshells and feeling like shit every time she made it a necessity.

She wished her body would get with the Sam Exception program already. Sam didn't deserve having to put up with her dysfunction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *high-fives anyone who laughed at the Dr. Strangelove reference*
> 
> Feedback welcome and often cherished~


	4. there's such a chill

The clinic trip was exactly as stressful and overwhelming as Deanna had thought it would be. To rub it in, she even got a souvenir, like the pictures you could buy of yourself riding a roller coaster, except it was a picture of her insides. She survived sexual abuse and all she got was this lousy bundle of cells. 

When they got back to the room she stared at the grainy sonogram printout long enough that an entire movie played in the background while she was curled up with her back to the room. She was trying to get it to land home that it was inside her, taking on a life of its own, was going to use and rearrange her body to its liking so it could exit her like a south-bound, slow motion chestburster. It didn't even look like anything yet and for some reason that pissed her off. If she was going to be expected to care for and about it, the least it could do was look like something lovable instead of a vaguely bean-shaped lump.

"You okay over there?"

Sam had taken one look at the picture in the car and had almost started crying. She'd been crying on the inside for what seemed like forever. The comforter made a sound related to a crunch when she shifted to look up at the haphazardly popcorned ceiling. The first time she tried to say something, nothing came out. She was too tired to even wonder why, just kept trying until she finally got it.

"Peachy."

"Y'know, it's—"

"Can we not?" Her throat scratched painfully liked she'd been crying for real. "I know you want me to feel better, but that's not going to happen. Not right now. So can we just... not?"

They didn’t talk for the rest of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback welcome and often cherished~


	5. us a song

The next week she was feeling slightly better except for how goddamn hot it was.

Goosebumps pricked down Deanna's arms as she turned and pulled the back of her shirt to catch the A/C output like she had the front. She was not a fan of the summer heat showing its face while she did car maintenance. She was even less a fan of the hot and cold flashes that had decided to start tagging along with the morning sickness. Especially not the flashes of hot on the outside with chills on the inside.

She may have a fever. She should probably check in on that.

"Hey, Sam, we have a thermometer?"

He looked up from his book and gave her puffed out shirt an amused look. "Yeah, but..."

"But what?"

"Do you know what your temperature has been? It rises during pregnancy." Of course it does. Fuck her life. "Plus, you just came in from outside."

"It's fuckin' hot out there. I thought this place was supposed to have mild weather."

"You rather be in Louisiana right now?"

"Fuck you for even making me think about that."

Sam laughed and looked at her for a couple moments. She was about to call him out on being creep when he finally spoke up, "You remember a few years ago when we burned down that field with fireworks?"

The squeals and pops and vivid colors against stark black, Sam excited and happy like the kid he was supposed to be, their adrenaline-spiked giggling as they left the flames behind. It was easily one of her top 5 memories.

"What about it?"

"I was thinking... maybe you'd want to do it again?"

She gave him a flirty once-over. "You never told me you're a pyromaniac."

He didn't even blink in acknowledgment, the spoilsport.

"I thought it might be romantic or something," he said with a too-nonchalant shrug, "Get us out of the room."

Slight blush, wide pupils, licked lips. 'Romantic', huh? She pulled her damp shirt over her head and tossed it onto the unused bed. Sam put his book down as she approached.

"Mr. Winchester, you're trying to seduce me, aren't you?"

She was expecting fluster, not the coy, lopsided smile that was somehow both mysterious and promising. That and the way he was stroking over the inside of her wrist were decidedly not helping with the whole overheated situation.

"Might be."

She smiled. "In that case, when do you wanna go firework shopping?"

  


:::

  


The fireworks were gorgeous in the country-night dark, offering that orgasm-like catharsis of ending anticipation with a perfect explosion. She and Sam had spent an hour at the firework stand negotiating on what to buy, but now that the moment was here and the fireworks were stunning, Deanna was knee-deep in chick flick mode and couldn't look away from the colors and shadows playing out on the sharp planes of Sam’s face, the dip of his dimples, the excited gleam in his eyes. Any self-consciousness she had about staring disappeared at the grin that bloomed on Sam's face when he caught her. The smug, knowing tone of the smile that should have irritated her was so ridiculously sexy that her face and chest were hot as she walked over to light the last of their fireworks.

“So,” she said as she held the punk against a fuse, waiting for it to light, “When’s this seduction taking place? Cuz it’s about to be closing time here.”

Sam lifted an arm as she ran back and she took him up on the invitation. He was pleasantly warm and smelled like smoke and the hand on her waist was heavy with intention. Arousal had been smoldering in her sure as her punk since they reached the field, and one of her main thoughts as she watched the last bursts of light-color-sound was that it was kind of amazing that she was already wet. The falling embers drifted on the slight breeze and Deanna was startled out of her almost contemplative mood by Sam letting her go and heading to the car.

So were they done, then? If they waited until they were back at the room for the seduction, she’d probably be ready to sleep at that point. Two naps so she’d be refreshed for this were no match against building a body from scratch, apparently.

She watched the glow of the punk as she swished it like a sword on her way over to Sam. Even if she did pass out still horny, Sam had been right about it being nice. Tons of worse ways to spend an evening than watching gorgeous explosions with a beautiful boy.

“I don’t remember buying those,” she said when she saw what Sam was pulling out of the trunk.

“Got them ordered special. I told you I thought you were going to want to stay, right? So I was going to ask to do this anyway, like a going away party or something. The seduction part is a bonus.”

“Yeah, about that—are those sparklers??”

“Yeah.”

Deanna inspected the one he’d jammed into the ground like a rocket. It was a sturdy metal stick covered in the usual rough, packed dust, except it was three feet tall. Huh. As soon as Sam had planted them in a loose semicircle near the driver’s side, he reeled her in and leaned her against the car. Fingers trailing down her forearm to take the punk out of her hand left her a little breathless. It was embarrassing how easily the little things turned her into a romance novel character. As soon as Sam got the sparkler to catch, she could see the appeal. Gold light jumped across Sam’s face, made his eyes glitter. Not bad.

Making out had become almost easy in the past couple weeks as she learned and rooted herself in Sam signs: his hands firm and careful on her ribs, her back, her neck, her face; soft, eager mouth; gentle manhandling. Time slipped away as they kissed, marked only by the tiny movements of Sam’s hips against her and the sparkler dying. The warmth in her belly had been stoked into a fire by the time Sam leaned back slightly, punk lofted.

“Deanna...” He had a nervous, soppy expression and she was pretty sure she knew what was coming.

“Yeah?”

“Can we…I mean, do you want to...”

Normally she would have commented that if he couldn’t say it then he shouldn’t be doing it. But she suspected that ‘make love’ might actually come out of his mouth, and she was perfectly content with never having to hear sap like that.

“Yeah,” was her response. She was wet enough already that it shouldn’t pose a problem. She'd just have to try her hardest to stay in the moment.

“Yeah,” Sam said back, eyes wide enough that she could see the wonder in them even in the weak moonlight.

So fucking sappy. And stunning.

“I’ve got a condom—”

Deanna tugged him back in when he shifted to move away. If he got too far she might lose her nerve. She wanted it, but so many things could go wrong.

“Did you get tested when I went to the clinic like I told you to?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“Clean.”

“Same. And I can’t exactly get more pregnant.”

Sam’s stare was heavy on her for a moment.

“Okay. What about...Do you want me to pull out when my knot swells?”

Well at least he could talk about some of it just fine. Which made the heat on her cheeks feel all the more ridiculous.

“Um.” She didn’t want to space out on him more than she usually did, and certainly not make him stuck to her during. But at the same time— “If I can stay with you through most of it we should be fine, I think.”

“Okay.” He twisted slightly to light the next sparkler. “Let me know if you—”

“I will.”

He handed the punk back, hitched one of her thighs up, and proceeded to methodically put to use everything he’d learned about her body and responses in the past couple weeks until she was quivering, panting, hanging on for dear life and trying to give back as good as she got. He was always a quick study.

The sparkler had long since died when Sam finally pulled back enough for her to pick her panties and skirt up off the grass while he shoved his jeans and underwear further down to give himself more room. The warm summer breeze tickled her damp skin as she set their clothes on top of the car and watched Sam light half the rest of the sparklers. Jumpy, ecstatic light flickered bright around them as Sam lifted her up into position.

“You lit a lot.”

The unabashed grin he gave her sent a pulse of heat straight to her clit.

“I’m not going to last long.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Please do.”

The stretch pinched a little even with how wet she was and how good his fingers had worked her—they weren’t in the most conducive position and Sam was a little bigger than she was used to—and she had to whisper encouragement to keep him from stopping every time she made an ambiguous noise. He wasn’t exactly rough, but there was power behind his thrusts and a deep, nearly aggressive growl in his noises. He fucked her good and hard, kissed her within an inch of her life, and even as surrounded by him as she felt, it was still a struggle to keep herself grounded in it being him and therefore okay to feel good. It helped when he paused and leaned away slightly to light the rest of the sparklers and she saw his face and the emotion in his eyes as he looked at her. Her chest felt full as he pressed against her again.

It was only a couple more whirlwind minutes before Sam spoke, desperate, “Oh, fuck, tell me you’re with me.”

“I’m here, Sammy. I’m here.”

She was hanging on by her fingernails, but she was with him. With all her heart, she was with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These sparklers really do exist and they're legit somehow boring after the first minute and then you're just stuck with a giant sparkler for what seems like an eternity o_o
> 
> Feedback welcome and often cherished~


	6. keep breathing

It was mid-August before their dad called and said he was going to take a break and come check in on them. Sam and Deanna had finally relaxed into a routine of work and play—Sam at the restaurant, Deanna helping watch the motel front desk and pitiful breakfast offering at ass o'clock in the morning while the manager, Marissa, drove her two mates and the seven kids between them to work and newly-started school. Deanna generally liked kids that weren't taking her body hostage, but when the manager's rugrats occasionally sighted her and swarmed, it felt like an ambush of pint-sized werewolves. If keeping a kid was in her future, she was going to have a hard limit of two max.

Deanna had mostly calmed down from first noticing it was starting to become A Bump and things were good between her and Sam. Her progress on staying in the moment felt infuriatingly slow sometimes, but it was happening.

So of course their dad decided to intrude. Predictably, Sam tensed up and Deanna tried to be patient. Tried.

“I could take off work," Sam suggested as soon as the door closed behind them. Deanna rolled her eyes as she sat her duffel full of freshly washed clothes on the dresser.

“Right, cuz that’s not suspicious.”

“We haven’t seen him in two months," he said as he joined her in putting their clothes in the drawers. "I could say that with the baby on the way I’m trying to appreciate family time more and don’t want to miss him being here.”

Deanna couldn’t help her laugh. “Bullshit. He’d see right through that.”

“I can’t—”

She reach out and laid a hand on his arm. “Yes you can. And you will. This is part of the plan, remember? To keep things copacetic as far as he knows for as long as possible. I need you to hang in there and keep it in check, Sam. Got it?”

His mouth was tight and his eyes were shiny as he refused to meet her gaze. “Yeah, I got it.”

There was only the shortest lag time between her throwing her arms over his shoulders and pulling him down into a hug, and him wrapping her up in a tight squeeze like a toddler startled by loud weather. She trailed kisses where she could reach until settling at the junction of his jaw and ear. She breathed in the scent that her body was starting to treat as 'mate' and mentally shored herself up for whatever Dad was going to throw at them.

It'd undoubtedly suck, but it'd be fine. She'd survived 100% of all the shittiness to date, after all.

  


:::

  


The weather was sweltering the day-of, like hell had exhaled heat when it burped their dad back into their space. She and Sam waited for him outside, leaning against the painted metal fence around the pool. Sam had to leave soon for work but neither of them could stand the anticipation. They both wanted to know the second he arrived.

Deanna could practically feel her blood pressure rise when the truck came into view, but she had her breathing in control by the time he had parked next to the Impala and was jumping down from the cab.

“It’s been too long!” their dad greeted with a wide grin, like they were a normal family. Like he actually gave a shit about either of them.

Deanna watched carefully as Sam waved away their dad’s offer of a hug, and stared him down as she let herself be enveloped and squeezed.

“You showin’ yet? Got a sonogram?”

She barely resisted swatting his hands away when he touched The Bump.

“Yeah, I’ll show you.”

She led the way back to the motel room and heard a soft thump behind her, probably Dad clapping his hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“Thanks for looking out for her while I’m not here, son.”

“I’m not doing it for you.”

Their dad cooed over the print out, eyes bright. She didn’t want him anywhere near it once it was born. She better not go into early labor. God, they hadn’t even looked into custody rights if she didn’t adopt it out. They needed to get on that before it was time.

“So how’s the hunting? Any leads on the thing that killed mom?”

“Hunts are going well, but no news on the big picture. I’ve got feelers out, though, hoping for something soon. I wanna be here when it’s born. Babies are a hassle, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

“Deanna and I can manage,” Sam said, voice too crisp for her liking.

“I’m not doubting you. Just sayin’. More hands the better. Speaking of, Deanna tells me you got a job?”

“Yessir.”

“You gotta go today?”

“Yessir; right now, in fact.”

“That’s a shame. Will you be back in time for dinner?”

“Maybe. Sometimes he lets us go home early.”

“Mighty kind of him. Maybe we should get you a phone, too, so you can keep us updated. Actually, that’s a good idea. That way if anything happens while you’re out….”

Sam grit his teeth, and Deanna shook her head behind their dad’s back.

“Yessir.”

His movements were jerky as he picked up his uniform. “I guess I’ll head out. Do you need me for anything, Deanna?”

She shook her head again. All these outs Sam was trying to give her made her chest ache, hating that he was having to put up with all of this.

“I’m good, Sam. Dad and I can take care of anything that comes up.”

“Yeah, don’t you worry, Sam; I can take good care of her too, believe it or not.”

Sam rolled his eyes as he turned away, and Deanna didn’t take a full breath again until the rumble of the Impala meant he was driving away. The breath hitched into a small sob and her sinuses itched with tears. Sam tried so hard for her and she couldn't do anything to make it better, didn't have anything to give in return. She couldn't even offer the comfort of a strong big sister who could protect him anymore—that had been her job since she was _four_ and she couldn't even—

"Are you okay?"

A single cold tear slipped down her cheek to dangle on her chin as she looked up at her dad.

"A character I hate on the soap I've been watching died last week. I cried for like twenty minutes. Hormones." It was true. It had nothing to do with his question, but it was true.

Her dad kind of nodded and his face and eyes unfocused with fond memory. "Your mom and I were watching some horror movie once when she was pregnant with you and outta nowhere she started ranting—crying out of frustration or something—about how inaccurate the monster was. I was furious at first because I thought she was high or drunk, but no. Just hormones. Speaking of moodiness...." He focused back on her, eyebrows high. “Is it me or does Sam seem even more stand-offish than normal?”

“I mean, I don’t think he’s been thrilled to see you since he was like 12, so….” Again: not actually relevant, but no less true for it.

“Fair enough. Still. He been acting weird? Sniffing around you or anything?”

Shit. Sam hadn’t even actually started anything and Dad was already suspicious. Not good, not good. She mirrored his raised eyebrows from earlier.

“This is _Sam_ we’re talking about, right?”

Her dad scoffed, humor seeping back into his face. Danger allayed for the moment.

"You’re right. Boy probably still barely knows what his pecker is for, let alone what to do with it.”

Sam was 18. But if an embarrassingly bad idea of how his own gender’s reproductive development went was what kept him from looking too closely at Sam, then she’d take it, and be glad that she’d been to enough schools to hodgepodge a sexual health education over the years.

“Sweetheart, you don’t even know how hard it was to keep my hands off you. Don’t know how I’m gonna keep it up. Your birthday cannot come soon enough.” He crowded her, hands on her abdomen again before redirecting her into accepting a kiss. “Knew you’d be gorgeous. C’mon, get naked, let me see.”

He flipped the clasp on the door so Sam wouldn’t be able to get in even if he doubled back, and settled on the bed, studying as she stripped.

“Good girl. Come over here, let me feel.”

As frustrating as it was trying to stay in the moment with Sam, she was really glad her defense mechanism was as strong as it was. She barely knew what was happening until he instructed her to lay on her side so he could see The Bump in profile as she blew him.

The nausea had been better lately but it was by no means extinct, and a blowjob sounded even more highly unpleasant than normal. She shook her head, tried to mouth and gesture a warning, a plea for basically anything else, but he ignored it like he always did. He pushed her slightly to get her moving.

“C’mon, Deanna. Been dreamin’ about that mouth of yours, your slick pussy, getting to feel my baby inside you as I fuck you, and we only have so much time until Sam gets back. **Move**.”

The position was awful, everything was at the wrong angle. She took a deep breath in preparation and nearly gagged at the musky smell of him having driven over a day without showering. That did not bode well, especially considering the way to make this go faster was to choke on it. Dread of the nausea was causing it all on its own.

“What are you waiting for? It’s not going to suck itself.”

She stalled by lapping up the copious precum with kitten licks as she tried to think of a plan to get out of it, then mentally said a prayer and dived right in when she came up with bupkis.

She lasted all of two minutes before her lunch came up all over his lap. Humiliation and disgust and failure rattled in her when he shoved her away so her remaining, pointless retching was over the comforter.

“What the hell, Deanna? **I take back the command to be silent—warn me in the future**.”

A flash fire of fury burned away the humiliation, the disgust, the fear, until the only thing left was the rage, naked and raw as the rest of her. ‘Warn him’?

“Why the fuck should I bother,” she spit out, voice scratchy from abuse and acid. “You’ve __never__ listened to me! Not my ‘no’s, not my ‘not here’s, not my pleas, not my pain! Serves you goddamn right for—”

A rough hand caught her by the throat and yanked her up into kneeling. She could barely breathe, her head felt light, and her pulse was hammering against his fingers wrapped too tight, too firm, unrelenting when she frantically tried to pull them away. Her dad looked livid, dangerous, and terror drenched her as his hold tightened to the point of pain and he shook her. He had never— He could kill her like this, crush her windpipe easy as anything considering what he did for a living. She didn’t want to die in a shitty motel.

Her dad jerked her closer and she whimpered at the pressure grinding parts of her throat against each other and grimaced when her hand landed in her sick.

“What the fuck has gotten into you?”

Her voice could barely get out and sounded tinny in her ears as she frantically apologized through her panicked crying, claiming it was hormones and feeling like crap.

Blood rushing back made her dizzier to the point she swayed when he let her go. Shuddering, jumpy inhales were cold agony from her throat burning and aching inside and out. Her dad shoved at her until she was off the bed and standing on unsteady legs before he got up and stripped the comforter off, balled it up, and tossed it in the corner.

His hand was tight around her arm when he dragged her into the bathroom. She was shaking all over, blank with shock after the immediate threat had passed, as he started the shower.

“You’re lucky I don’t fuck you with the mess you made still on me.”

The water was hot and she only hazily noticed when he rinsed sick out of her hair too. The air was muggy but still bitingly cold when he whipped the shower curtain back and pushed her out of the tub. He didn’t even bother drying either of them off before he practically lifted her over the counter, her face past the sink, edge sharp against her hips, putting uncomfortable pressure against The Bump and her bladder. Her feet barely reached the floor at the awkward angle and kept slipping against the peeling linoleum until he pushed her hips harder into the counter edge in order to shove his dick in. Their skin was still wet enough that the slap when he rammed home actually hurt, and she braced a hand against the mirror to avoid her head meeting the iridescent turquoise backsplash again. She whimpered when his hand in her hair snagged on tangles and stung her scalp when he tugged so she could see their reflection blurry in the fogged-up mirror.

“This is where you belong, Deanna. If I don’t ‘listen,’ it’s because you don’t seem to realize that you’re mine. If you would learn your place already, this wouldn’t be an issue.” He leaned down and laid a gentle kiss on her nape over her mating gland and she tried, failed, not to shudder in fear. “I know you can be a good girl, sweetheart, I wish you’d stop making me punish you. You’ll need to be a good role model for our kid, after all.”

Everything was so suffocatingly damp that her tears didn’t even make streaks down her face. They just bled into the clammy water on her cheeks, turning it brackish.

  


:::

  


Singing cicadas, chattering birds, barking dogs, passing cars, bluegrass music blasting from the obnoxious kitchy BBQ restaurant across the street. Chlorine, cheap plastic, hot asphalt. The sunshine barely shy of burning, the occasional gentle breeze, the pliant rungs of the pool chair stretched by her weight, the warm cotton under her hands on her stomach, the throbbing aches.

Deep breath. Open eyes. A few cracked tiles on the edge of the pool full and surprisingly clean except for a couple struggling bugs, the asphalt split in some spots just enough that a few spiteful weeds were growing, chipped-paint fence, two stories of motel rooms, endless clear blue sky beginning to ripen for sunset.

Deanna hadn’t expected it to be so nice out when she had left the room to nap poolside rather than stay in the room a second longer than she had to, but it was a lovely day. There was a big waterfall-lake-park something-rather fairly close—that was probably downright gorgeous this time of year.

She was in the middle of imagining waterfall spray taking the edge off the heat when the Impala’s engine announced Sam’s return. A minute later, a paper bag tapped against the side of her face and she sat up to take it. Sam skirted around to sit on the next chair over and she could see him scanning for signs of their dad in her periphery as she searched the bag. Mmm, Chinese food. Maybe a bit heavy after the day she’d had, but tasty.

“Didn't bring stuff from work like usual?”

“Not sure it matters but I figure he doesn’t need to know we’re saving money on food or that my boss is legit nice.”

“Paranoid much?”

“I talked to one of my coworkers. I’ll help cover for when she goes to some music festival a state over in a few weeks in exchange for her covering for me the next couple days. Hopefully he’ll be gone by then.” He glanced over her like she’d come back from a hunt while she opened the little tub of wonton soup. “Are...are you okay? I mean, did he…?”

“Well, yeah. Not my first rodeo, though, remember, so put away those puppy eyes. And good news: he took back the order to be quiet. I probably won’t use it, but it’s nice to have the option again.”

Sam had his usual conflicted face on. The hot broth soothed her throat as she sipped at it. He didn’t move to take the bag back.

“You not eating?”

“Not sure if I can, considering.”

She almost rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen. You’re not helping anything by not eating. Here.” She held the heavy bag out as she tipped her head back and drained the last of the broth. Sam’s grip slipped, sending the bag to the asphalt. “What the hell, man?”

She flinched in surprise when he dropped to a crouch in front of her and tilted her chin back up.

“Again: what the hell?”

“He put those marks on you?” Sam asked in a hushed, dangerous tone.

Shit. It should have occurred to her that the lingering ache meant bruising was on its way. She’d been so busy trying not to think about it.

“It’s not a big deal, Sam.” A lie. “I’ll live.” True so far.

Sam was full-on snarling when he stood up. “That’s it.”

Deanna barely caught his arm before he passed, and was thankful that he actually stopped. She stood to tuck in close and anchor a hand in his cheesy polyester shirt a little too low for a sister. Angry breathing moved her hand along with the shirt. She didn’t know how much more of this she could handle, wished with all her damaged heart that Sam was still blissfully ignorant.

“ Sammy, I am asking you for one thing with all this.  _ _ One _ _ .” She tried to let her desperation for a quiet ending to everything shine through her eyes. “Please.”

“Fine," he said, voice tight with wrath, not even looking at her. "But I’m calling Bobby.”

Sam didn’t look at her at all before he walked off to find somewhere secluded to make the call, and somehow that hurt more than the rest of the day put together.

  


:::

  


It was two days before Bobby found something good enough to get their dad on the road again. The second he was out the door Sam collapsed into one of the seafoam green chairs with a sigh. He had been upset the whole time, was all but chomping at the bit every time their dad so much as moved, and Deanna had been on edge, waiting for things to go even further south.

She hugged herself, tried to relax, but she felt like shit in all the ways it was possible to do so.

“Help me understand, Deanna,” Sam said in a restrained voice that told her he was trying not to be angry at her. “Why the fuck do you want to let him get away with all this?”

“I’ve already explained. If I run away and he finds me—”

“I’m not talking about running away. I’m talking about reporting him for abuse.”

Oh. She settled gingerly on the edge of Sam's—_their_—bed.

“Even if he went to prison, which isn’t a guarantee, you think that’d hold him for long? We break laws constantly, Sam, prison break really wouldn’t be that big a deal compared to grave desecration and what looks like murder to civilians. Plus, you and me don't exactly have squeaky-clean records.”

“So you just take it?”

“I don’t exactly have much of a choice.” She licked her lips, focused on the bland beachfront art on the wall, and made sure her voice would come out even. “But you do, Sam. I know this has been hard on you. If you wanna leave, I won’t hold it against you.”

He was heavily, pointedly silent and when she finally looked over it was to see him glowering at her.

“How the hell can you say that to me?”

She wrapped her arms tighter.

“I didn’t want to leave you behind before I even knew this was going on. Even if I hated you, which could not be any fucking further from how I feel, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I left you with him. I just can’t stand that you stay and don’t do anything to stop it.”

There was nothing she could say that she hadn’t already. After the silence stretched long enough that it was clear she wasn’t going to respond, Sam sighed in frustration, let his head drape over the back of the chair, and didn’t say a word to her the rest of the day until he asked what she wanted for dinner.

He spooned her that night same as he had been for over a month. She still couldn’t sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback welcome and often cherished~


	7. a song to keep

When Sam got home from work the next day, it was a pleasant surprise that he seemed in good spirits. Deanna had been researching baby things and trying not to get skeeved out for hours when he bounced in with a smile on his face.

“What did you take and did you bring enough to share with the class?”

“I’m not high,” he said with a small eye roll. “And you shouldn’t be either, considering you’re pregnant and all.”

“Am I? I hadn’t noticed.”

He sat down across from her at the little table. She grew slightly suspicious when he leaned forward with excited eyes and practically whispered, “I want us to go somewhere tomorrow.”

“Y’know, most people ask. But lucky for you my schedule is clear after Marissa gets back. Do I need to tell her to find someone else to cover for a while?”

“Oh, no, it'll be a day trip. There’s that big nature sight-to-be-seen a couple hours away, right? I say we go.”

She stared at him blankly and he didn’t budge. He was serious.

“It’s hot as fuck out there.”

“I say we go,” he repeated with a small shrug and an unrepentant smile.

She eyed him warily, but couldn’t think of anything nefarious he might be up to besides wanting to throw her into the waterfall. Sam wasn’t the type, though, and knew of at least a dozen better ways to dispose of someone.

“Yeah, okay.” Her stupid heart picked up speed when he grinned at her. “We’ll need a shit-ton of water and some sunscreen so you’re not banging a lobster in the near future, though.”

His nose scrunched up and she was back in familiar territory.

“Why are you so gross?”

“It’s a gift. Now help me translate what all these happy mothers-to-be are gushing about.”

  


:::

  


Like she had imagined the other day, the mist from the waterfall was great for taking the edge off the heat. She would admit that she’d been cooping herself up in the room more than usual since they’d settled in. Bars were a no-go while her womb was occupied, and shops were creepily empty on weekdays and annoyingly crowded on weekends. Outside of the weekly community sports games and the upcoming annual rodeo, there was jack-all to do in the town they’d settled in.

The sunshine on her face not being accompanied by the strong smell of chlorine and mirage-hot asphalt was a nice change of pace. The whole place was open and clean and pure, and big enough that her being the opposite felt diluted. When they moved on from the waterfall, they discovered that the water of the lake was clean but opaque. It took her a minute to reassure herself there probably wasn’t a lake monster considering how many civilians came to sight-see and they hadn’t heard any urban legend rumors in the months they’d been in the area. Sam all but dragged her into the blissfully cool water before she’d fully convinced herself.

It was fun and, bonus, they didn’t get eaten. She was in old boxers and one of Sam's undershirts rather than her usual sports bra because like fuck was she putting The Bump, however small, on display for people to comment on. Especially considering the makeup covering the blossomed bruises on her neck probably wouldn't hold up well. All the extra weight of clothes and bodily changes made swimming awkward, but Sam was never more than a few feet away from her. He would catch her if things got too heavy or she slipped. It was always nice to be reminded of how much she trusted him.

When their pruning started to sting, they headed for the park, the last stop of the day. They ate overpriced concession food, dried out on a picnic table with their heads at opposite sides, and had conversations that were sprinkled with embarrassing amounts of giggling.

Deanna had slathered herself with enough sunscreen according to the label directions that they were able to stay out most of the day. When she finally sat up Sam’s shirt was uncomfortably stiff and itchy from the dried remains of mineral-rich water. The Bump meant she would have to wait until she was in the privacy of the Impala to take it off, though, so she challenged Sam to a race to the car.

Neither of them had been on a hunt for ages, and all the adrenaline and elevated heart rates in her recent memories had been related to sex, only a tiny fraction of which had been uncomplicatedly pleasant. It felt amazing to run, to trust in her body to carry her, to feel it moving and working in a way that had nothing to do with another person. She kind of wanted to run forever, except for how she absolutely didn’t. Maybe Sam would start sparring with her again, or they could go out for target practice. Something so she would feel like herself again, not some homebody incubator.

She beat Sam by the skin of her nose, and grinned wide when he growled playfully and twirled her to better trap her between him and the almost-too-hot driver door. He looked as stress-free as she’d ever seen him, face glowing with fun, fickle-colored eyes bright and happy, and she wanted very badly to kiss him. She fumbled for the door handle to get him in the car so she could do exactly that, but he cupped her face and beat her to the punch. The tiniest unease flickered through her—someone might see and report them to dad, she’d been paranoid through years of semi-public sex that she’d get arrested for public indecency—but Sam’s other hand wrapped around her waist to hold her closer, familiar and safe, and she let herself melt into him and kiss back. Maybe a little too long and enthusiastic, considering the wolf whistle that startled her out of it.

Sam gave the person an awkward wave and Deanna laughed at him as she finally got herself into the car. She was going to have to wait on taking the shirt off or she might get the cops called on them.

In stark contrast to the day, the drive back was mostly silent besides her music playing quietly. Sam stared at her for a lot of it, sweet and heated, especially after she finally wiggled out of the shirt to leave only her bra, and she had to nudge him away when he kept trying to initiate make-out sessions at red lights.

When they finally got back to the motel room, Sam didn’t stop touching her for a moment—his arm around her waist as she checked the parking lot for their dad’s truck, his mouth making its way up her neck as she called the front desk to check no messages had been left for them, his hands in her hair as he backed her into the bathroom with kisses. He whined at her declaration that they were not having shower sex, that he was going to fuck her in a bed like a gentleman. He behaved, though, didn’t even rut against her as they washed each other or when she dried them off.

The weird texture of the comforter was familiar against her naked back. So were the starchy sheets. They kissed tucked tight against each other until she finally grounded herself, stopped trembling, and gave him permission. As usual, his movements were almost aggressive while his hands were gentle. She traced along all the toned muscle, the sturdy body that would catch her, would protect her if she asked, that housed the one and only person she truly cared about in the whole world.

When he finally entered her she was the most relaxed she’d ever been during sex. Nothing hurt and she wasn’t tense in anticipation of discomfort, it was just a smooth stretch that made her feel full, close. His thrusts were confident, not quite rough, and she felt it so much that she shivered and gasped with sensation. She clung tight, breathed against the sweat on his neck, held on to his soft, damp hair, cradled him between her legs. Little pricks of frustration followed the couple times she had to bring herself back from drifting. She wanted to be so lost in him that drifting was impossible. She wanted to be full of him, to feel him with every inch of herself. The groan he gave when she whispered it to him reverberated in her chest—even in that way he was inside her.

“Talk to me, Sam.”

He faltered for a moment, lifted his face from her hair to look at her with concern. Fair enough: the only time he’d attempted any kind of dirty talk she'd had a panic attack. They’d steered clear of him talking much since then.

“You sure?”

The request was almost forgotten in the bout of kissing she initiated, but she remembered when he started moving in earnest again.

“Definitely sure. Don’t say anything possessive, keep your chest on mine, put bass in your voice.”

He wiggled his chest against hers and the smile she glimpsed when she gasped at the feeling told her he did it on purpose, the brat. She barely kept from smacking him. No matter how playful it would be, she wasn’t about to introduce hitting to their intimate moments.

“You’re beautiful when you’re having fun,” he said at exactly the right pitch for her to feel it between her lungs. The words themselves had her nearing second thoughts. She could only handle so much at one time.

“I mean, you’re beautiful all the time, but you light up when you’re having fun. Stunning.”

Tan skin she could barely see in the bathroom light dented under her hold. “Sam.”

“I wanna make you look like that all the time, Deanna. You deserve—” Too full.

She stretched to shut him up with another kiss. The angle and barest strain in her muscles felt good, so she kept him in place when he tried to lean down to make it easier for her.

“Shh,” she said between messy, hungry kisses, “less talking now, more fucking.”

  


:::

  


The Bump was far enough along that it had started making her need to pee at really inconvenient times, like when she was in the middle of afterglow spooning. She peeled herself away from Sam’s back and felt the mattress shift as he rolled over to face her as she sat up on the edge of the bed.

“Y’know, there’s one thing we haven’t really talked about that would solve this whole ‘but what if he finds us’ problem.”

God, he _just_ came, the evidence was still warm between her legs, how was he coherent? She was almost offended.

“Oh yeah? What’s that, genius?” she asked lightly, expecting some kind of silly post-date, post-coital joke.

The mattress shifted a tiny bit—him propping up on an elbow.

“Deanna…”

S he turned slightly to look over her shoulder. He sounded nervous but steadied, like he was about to give a speech. He looked up at her and the first real spark of fear fired in her at the sheer vulnerability in his gaze.

“Will you let me be your mate?”

“No,” came out of her immediately, knee-jerk.

Sam looked down at his hands, mouth curled in on itself slightly. His voice was still calm, but had the tiniest waver. The kind that comes from being at risk for tears. “Can I ask why not?”

Good question. She took a deep breath, tried to ignore her bladder, and stared at the digital clock on the nightstand as she thought through her strong response. It wasn’t that she didn’t think he was mate material. It was that she thought someday some other girl was going to be very lucky to have him. She hadn’t ever really thought of what they were doing as a fling, had never thought about it ending before, but there was no way Sam would really stick around. Not when there had to be tons of beautiful, undamaged omegas out there who would present for him in a heartbeat. Smart, too, if they met at Stanford.

“It’s bad enough that I’m letting you risk your safety and scholarship. I’m not about to let you saddle yourself to me and possibly a baby that isn’t yours. There are plenty of fish in the sea, Sam.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not asking you out of pity or something, then. You’re not __letting__ me risk anything. I am deciding to risk it. Because I think you’re worth it. I want to be with you—not because of this fucked up situation and not in spite of it—just because you’re you. I’ve been content to be saddled for a long time now, and don’t see any reason that would change.”

Deanna couldn’t meet his eyes. It might be shitty of her, but she didn’t exactly trust the love confession of a teenager who had just had good sex.

There was a sad sigh behind her. “Think about it. Please.”

She nodded to placate him and finally got up to go pee and probably hide out until Sam fell asleep. She wasn’t going to let him throw away his one chance at having a mate on her. Emotions run high in abuse situations, but he’d see the light once they were in the clear.

Assuming they'd __ever__ be in the clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback welcome and often cherished~


	8. such a chill

The second day of October brought the first movement that Deanna couldn’t explain away.

She and Sam were on the return trip from the matinee they had caught the next town over, going back and forth about the lore (Sam) and how good Kate Beckinsale looked in latex and leather (Deanna). She might be a little gay for Kate Beckinsale. And Lucy Liu. Tara Benchley. Blanche Devereaux.

She might be a little gay.

Didn’t matter.

The point was vampires.

“Look, if they’re extinct, why are you getting your panties all in a bunch if an action movie got the lore wrong?”

“That’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying—”

Deanna gasped so hard she almost choked and reflexively slapped her hazards on without thought.

“Deanna, what—?”

She pulled over onto the shoulder, threw it into park, and leaned back, trying to breath.

Something had moved. Almost like a roll, not just a flutter, not just gas, it was— oh god, there it was again.

“Jesus, Deanna!”

She smacked away the hand reaching for her and gasped in air as best she could while fighting the door before figuring out it was locked.

Fresh air was still hard to breath. She was wheezing. Her chest was tight like indigestion without the burn, her heart was practicing for an audition for NASCAR, she might be having a heart attack. She couldn’t fucking breathe. She was going to pass out on the side of the highway. The asphalt was going to burn like a bitch.

“Deanna? Dee! What’s going on, what’s wrong?”

“It—” Was she crying? All she ever did these days was cry and feel like warmed-over death because—

“What? Come on, talk to me, baby.”

She snatched her arms out of Sam’s hold and staggered back, betrayed.

“It can’t”—wheeze—“hear you.” Why the fuck was he trying to talk to it when she was right there? Oh, fuck, what if it really could hear?

A pathetic whine came from high in her throat and she smacked him away when he reached out to her. It’d happened again. It was going to be happening a lot, wasn’t it?

“What are you talking about?”

She was a caged animal. This was what a lion trapped in a sketchy roadside bathroom stall would feel like. She needed to molt. If she could get out of her skin, she’d be able to breathe again. She’d be free.

“Listen, Deanna,” Sam followed her down when she squatted. “I think you’re having another panic attack. Try to breathe normally.”

Bitter, hysterical laughter ripped out of her.

Why the fuck should her breathing be normal when nothing else in her life was?

  


:::

  


Twenty minutes later Deanna was slumped against the passenger door and Sam was speeding them back to the motel. He asked her if she wanted to pick dinner up on the way there.

“It moved.”

“The place you want to go to?”

She pointed at her abdomen. Could hear Sam’s throat click on his swallow.

“Well that’s,” he cleared his throat, probably so his voice wouldn’t come out so wobbly, “that’s good, right? I mean, if it didn’t move….”

She hadn’t thought she was in denial, but as hard as she had tried it hadn’t sunk in before that it was real, that there was no stopping it. It was alive.

“Y’know, it might not be too late to—”

“Shut up, Sam.”

All those years thinking she was trapped paled in the face of this. She was trapped not only in a physical space, in an abusive situation, but now by her own goddamn body.

There was no escape.

  


:::

  


A couple days of trying to lose herself in horror movie marathons later, her dad came back.

The first night of his stay she had a vivid dream: she heard a baby crying in the next room over and suddenly was opening its door. Her dad was on a sleeping bag in front of a lit fireplace, smiling as he spoke to her mom sitting next to him, nightgown and blood and all. But that wasn't remarkable; Deanna only had eyes for the bassinet her mom was gently rocking. It was a deep black that blurred and cut into the space around it like a void in the dimly-lit room. She pushed aside the tulle that felt like whispers against her skin until she saw the baby, face newborn-puffy and creased in a way that made it look like a sleep-deprived 30-year-old. Her mom murmured something wordless to Deanna, who barely heard it. But it woke up the baby. The room fell away when malicious yellow eyes stared up at her and her scream was as good as soundless under the crackling of flames echoing through the bassinet's void.

Deanna startled awake with a whimper and mindlessly shoved her dad's arm off her waist. She was barely aware of him pulling back with a groan as she sat up or of the chill sent through her as air hit her sweat-soaked shirt. She couldn't think, could barely breathe past the dread giving her insides frostbite.

"It's going to kill me," she said under her breath.

Her dad made an annoyed, muzzy "wha'?" sound.

"It's going to kill me," she repeated at normal volume. "It's going to kill me!"

Sam stirred in his bed and her dad's hand burned on her lower back.

"The hell are you talking about?"

"The baby. Yellow Eyes. It's going to kill me! You have—" she turned around to look at the silhouette of her dad. "You have to find it. Now! What the hell are you doing here when you need to go find it!?"

It was a short visit.

It was a shitty month.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the aesthetic of this nightmare~
> 
> Feedback welcome and often cherished <3


	9. us warm

Late November found them pulling alongside the curb of a quaint little suburban house’s lawn. The house was barely visible past the two giant magnolia trees planted too close, but Deanna could see tan brick behind the ivy-covered trellis and a navy door in a painted, enclosed portico. A cute home as far as she could tell as she parked in front of it.

“I guess fast food managers make more than I thought. You sure this is the right address?”

Sam obligingly looked at the paper for the fourth time, but the occupant answered the question for them.

“Sam!”

A plump, dark-skinned man with bright grey hair waved at them from the steps.

“Yup, right place.”

Deanna hefted herself out of the car and followed her brother up to the front of the house.

“Manager Jean-Baptiste,” Sam greeted as he shook the man’s hand. “This is Deanna.”

“Hi.”

He beamed as he shook her hand. “Lovely to meet you!" He said in a light, lilting accent Deanna wasn't familiar with. "How are you?”

“We’re good, yourself?”

“Very good, very good. Excited to see my family for Thanksgiving, and very grateful you’re available to watch house.”

“We’re very grateful for you offering.”

“It’s nothing. Come in, come in!”

The interior decorating was vivid colors on the walls and in paintings and upholstery. Crosses and candles. He led them through the living room straight into a kitchen, where something smelled amazing.

“I hope you’re hungry; I thought we could share lunch before I go. It’s almost done.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“I wanted to. Let me show you everything while it finishes.”

The living room had plush furniture, dark wood accents, stacks of magazines, pictures lined up on the mantle under a TV and at least two “Trust in God” decorations. Deanna tried not to get caught up in that the pictures were full of white people. The study was mostly overflowing bookshelves and semi-tidy papers with a thin layer of dust over half of it. The bedrooms were much the same except the master bedroom had a huge four-poster bed complete with curtains tied back with thick golden ropes. The inside of the house felt like a palace and the back yard was bright green with splashes of colorful gardens and a large compost heap. He showed them the trash bins, the irrigation control panel, and the retractable awning over the wooden patio furniture. They came full circle back to the kitchen, past a breakfast nook with bay windows, and into a spacious dining room with white wainscoting, retro wicker chairs, and three places set.

“Have a seat, it should be finished now. I’ll be right back. Coffee or something else to drink?”

“Coffee’s great,” Deanna said with a polite smile.

“Water for me.”

Their host nodded and left.

“Making me look bad with your water.”

“You know coffee’s a diuretic, right? With all the complaining you do about having to pee every five minutes, I’d think you’d be sticking to water too.”

She clicked her tongue in dismissal. “Did you know he was going to feed us?”

“Nope.”

“Whatever it is, it smells delicious. Nice break from our usual free food.”

Sam’s boss came in a moment later with everything arranged on an honest-to-god serving cart and served Deanna first. She recognized the beans and rice easily enough, but less so the red sauce and the meat hidden by it.

He must have noticed her head tilt, because he followed it up with, “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask if you have allergies or if Baby doesn't like anything. It’s tomato paste and chicken, rice and beans, spices. That okay?”

She made sure to make her grin genuine. “Sounds and smells great. Thank you.”

Sam was next, and then his boss. They waited until he picked up his silverware before they touched theirs. Never a bad idea to follow people’s lead.

“Sam mentioned things are not well with your father. I'm sad to hear it. Do you have other family? Looking forward to the baby?”

Looking forward to it being out of her. After that, all bets were off.

“No, it's only my dad and Sam. And I’m trying to do right by it. I wanted to say thank you so much for letting Sam take extra food home, it’s been a life saver.”

“I only wish I had better for you. Nutrition—very important.”

“Yeah, Sam makes sure I’m taking all my vitamins." She paused to chew and come up with a topic other than her. As tasty as the food was, she didn't want to ruin her appetite. "If it’s not too sensitive a topic, Sam said you were reminded of your wife by our situation?” People liked talking about their families in her experience. God new Marissa held her hostage for at least half an hour every weekday with chatting about hers.

“Mmm, yes.” His face shifted into that far-away, fond grief she saw in so many interviewees on cases. “Grace. When we met, she'd escaped an abusive mate, already had a baby, another on way. She didn't want any help, thought it would trap her. It took months until she let me cook for her. She was a...a firecracker, a fighter." His smile faded. "I don’t know if we did something bad or if God just thought it was time, but I lost her a few years after we married when she was delivering our son. Lost him too.”

So Deanna reminded him of his wife who died in childbirth. Not ominous at all. “I’m so sorry to hear that. So you’ll be visiting…?”

“Grace’s two sons—I adopted them. This is the oldest’s first time hosting Thanksgiving and I’m very happy to help.”

“You eating the traditional stuff or some of this frankly awesome stuff? Is it rude to ask for the recipe?”

“Not at all, I’m so glad you like!”

“I’m always on the lookout for something good with limited ingredients.”

Sam was quiet the entire meal, watching them chitchat like it was a low-stakes tennis match. Deanna couldn't even be upset that he left her to do all the talking. She'd only really talked to three people over the last few months. And occasionally her technical-boss's rambunctious cluster of kids who more talked __at__ her than with her. She hadn't realized she missed socializing so much.

God, how humiliating would it be if it turned out she was a people person?

  


:::

  


As they said their goodbyes on the shaded front door step, Sam’s boss turned to Deanna with a glimmer in his eyes.

“So you know, you don’t have to pretend you're brother and sister. Grace was an unmated mother too. No shame in it."

Deanna was pretty sure she and Sam were both doing their best impression of the offspring of a gaping fish and a deer caught in headlights.

Jean-Baptiste laughed and waved in dismissal. “Don’t look shocked. Sam’s face when he talks about you says it. People don’t look like that about family.”

She barely managed not to laugh at how bright red Sam went.

“I know nesting instincts can be very strong, so you can nest here. No parties, don’t take things out of the room you found them in or ruin anything, but other than that: wash bedding, take trash out, and I’ll see you in a few days.”

He shook their hands again, said  _ _ na wè pita _ _ —“goodbye” if Deanna had to guess—and was off.

“You weren’t kidding when you talked about how friendly he is,” Deanna said when his car turned the corner out of sight.

“I can’t believe you two managed to talk about meals on a budget for 45 minutes.”

“What, you upset he knows about your marshmallow fetish now?”

He gave her a flat, displeased look and she grinned.

“Free reign of a whole, kinda fancy house, Sammy. The mind reels.”

“It’s Sam.”

“ Alright,  _ _ Sam _ _ ,” she snagged his shirt to tug him as she backed up towards the door. “Hope you know how to show a girl a good time.”

The smirk he gave her was promising.

  


:::

  


The next few days were a blast.

They splurged on movie rentals—_All Saints' Day_, _Hell Hazer_, the gory spin-off _Hell Razor_, every movie they knew with decent explosions, the good stuff—to watch with the surround sound system. Deanna rearranged the kitchen three times, rewashed all their perfectly clean clothing, and swept and scrubbed both bathrooms until they gleamed. Usually she would have bitched if asked to do any of that, but somehow it soothed a weird itch she had been stomping down for months.

Getting Sam to fuck her on the couch was surprisingly easy, but it took convincing to get him to do it in his boss's bed even though they basically had the man's blessing, way more people used the couch, and couches were a lot harder to clean.

It was worth the effort, though, and not just because the bed curtains made it feel like they were in some medieval-set romance movie. When she had her own place, she was absolutely going to save up money to get a memory foam mattress. Also a Crock-Pot. There was actual space in the kitchen for actual food, and the pot handled stew like a champ. She spent over an hour looking up recipes and long enough preparing food that her ankles swelled even bigger than usual. Sam had to ruin her fun like normal by insisting she not put herself through a full Thanksgiving meal, but every joint below her ears was grateful for it.

And that's how their Thursday ended up with them on the couch flipping between the football game and TV-censored action movies with plates stacked high with turkey sandwiches, instant potatoes, and slices of canned cranberry sauce. They took turns nearly accidentally inhaling apple cider from laughing at the ridiculous censored dubbing and the fake dubs they made up like they were in an MST3K episode.

The Bump was having a blast too, but Deanna didn't even mind for once. The stitch in her side from laughter and the jabs that took her breath away blended together into easily ignored discomfort. All her focus was on their game and how Sam was glowing with humor and fun. And her food, of course, all of which was worth the heartburn in her near future, including the pumpkin pie slices she smothered in cool whip like she used to think was an insult to the dessert but was fucking delicious to her pregnant taste buds.

All it took was one good smear of her leftover cool whip on Sam's cheek to get them engaged in a cool whip food fight that dissolved quickly into a make-out session with a lot of licking.

"We should—" Sam stuttered on a groan when Deanna nipped at the spot on his neck she had made sure would need a good cleaning. "We should really move this somewhere easier to clean. Shower? The, the shower head... "

Deanna leaned back to stare him down. The shower head was one of the detachable, multi-setting kinds. She had made exactly one joke about it and only gotten an exasperated head shake. And now—

"I can't believe I ever thought you were shy. It's always the quiet ones."

"I told you: if I like the person...."

He had, hadn't he? Five months and she could still hardly believe it. Honestly, what had she done to deserve him?

The cool whip was already going watery, slick and sticky between their faces when she pulled him down into more kisses. He inhaled like he was about to insist they move, so she beat him to it.

  


:::

  


When they finally got around to doing the dishes that evening, Deanna's ass and orgasm-wobbly knees still ached from the walk-in shower’s tiles. It was the best kind of pain, though, the kind that came with a warm haze, loose hips, and a small smile.

One such smile was showing off Sam's dimples and making him radiate contentedness. Her pulse was fast in her throat as she accepted the washed and rinsed plate he handed her. They must look like some stereotypical ‘50s couple, washing the dishes together. She liked the quiet, domestic intimacy. She liked not worrying Dad could walk in any second. She liked laughing with Sam, liked curling up with Sam, liked making up ridiculous backstories for characters in whatever they were watching with Sam. She liked that she felt safe with him. She liked that he liked her as a person.

"What you walked in on that night…" She said it to the plate as she dried it. She needed to do what she could to prevent being thrown back into that head space this evening. Sam froze, dripping hands poised above the fluffy soap suds hiding the remaining dishes. "That was his celebration of the news I was pregnant."

"Oh."

"If I...if I decided to keep The Bump, would you help raise it?"

"Of course." He looked at her and said it like it was a given, like he was borderline offended she'd felt the need to ask.

Deep breath. Eye contact.

“Then yes.”

His eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened, obviously hoping he knew what she was referring to.

“The question you asked back in August. If it’s still on the table, I’m changing my answer to ‘yes’.”

“Seriously?” He moved towards her, dazzling grin not losing a single watt when she flinched back slightly and he stopped, connecting the dots. “Can I kiss you?”

She set down the plate and dishtowel, turned fully towards him, and nodded. Protested with “dude” when his pruned hands cupped her face and neck while still covered in warm, soapy water. It didn’t ruin the kiss, though—still slow and sweet and excited—so she didn’t push him away. He started chattering in-between kisses about how he’d already called the school to ask about family housing. They’d told him they needed a room change request submitted with a notarized letter of intention to mate signed by both of them and a dated sonogram. A hassle, but not complicated.

It was weirdly hot how eager and prepared he was, and it wasn’t long before the kissing turned hungry. They spent the next few hours in bed and pulled out all the stops for what they’d been practicing to keep her in the moment. Somehow, miraculously, she only drifted briefly twice in all that time.

Deanna figured it was a Very Good Sign.

  


:::

  


When they got back to the motel two days later, they had an updated escape plan.

They would send the paperwork that week asking for a room assignment for the coming fall—the latest that Sam could postpone and keep his full-ride—and he would get his hands on some roofies as soon as he could. One of his coworkers was super sketchy and could probably at least point him in the right direction.

Deanna and Sam wouldn’t mate until she was legal just in case. There was no sense risking one or both of them being fucked over because of weird laws. They would stay put until then to keep the risk down of their dad catching onto them. Then the night before her birthday—there was no way Dad wouldn’t make it back for that unless he was seriously injured and even then Deanna wouldn’t put it past him to find a way—they would drug him.

He couldn’t mate Deanna if she was already mated by the time he came to.

Not that they wanted to stick around for that. They would probably hit the road as soon as they weren’t tied at Sam’s knot and had their bags ready to go. Deanna still didn’t want to drag Bobby into their mess more than he already was, but she agreed to reaching out to him if they ran out of options or money while biding time before the fall semester.

Happily Ever After was starting to look like a slim possibility for the first time since Deanna was 4. She prayed the tiny bud of hope she was allowing herself didn’t end up stabbing her in the back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback welcome and often cherished~


	10. don't lose your nerve

Deanna’s life seemed to be revolving around major holidays. A call from their dad came a week before Christmas to let them know he’d be coming “home”. Sam had joked that they could _ Home Alone _ it—booby trap the roo m to keep him on his toes. Deanna was more miffed that their _ Die Hard _ marathon would now be sans occasional making out.

Other than that, their plans didn’t change. Exchanging presents had fallen out of habit after the quasi-disaster year when Sam found out about hunting. Sam had been increasingly bitter about holidays in general and Dad hadn’t seemed to really care. It wasn't long before Deanna had given up trying to force it. Sometimes she resented how much work the two of them and their fraught relationship made her do to keep something related to peace. Most of the time she was resigned to it. Hopefully it would soon be a non-issue.

They didn’t know their dad's exact ETA and with only a month until her birthday they weren’t going to be surprised if he decided to stick around until then. Thankfully, Sam agreed that sneaking around wasn’t worth the risk of getting caught. August had shown them he wasn’t above physical violence and Deanna wasn’t eager for a repeat.

They cuddled most of the time they were waiting, right up until they heard the now-familiar rumble of his truck on Christmas Eve. Sam laid a chaste kiss on her lips, melancholy, lingering, and possibly their last one until they mated. She wanted to cry as she forced her hands to herself and took two steps away.

Dad was warm and ecstatic at how much The Bump had grown, and Sam strategically stayed behind his back so he couldn’t see Sam’s stormy face. Keeping up the act that everything was okay and she cared about her dad had become a little harder while also having to referee Sam, but she had a decade of practice under her belt and her hosting their frozen-lasagna dinner went without a hitch.

Sam helped her with cleaning the plastic dishes in the tiny bathroom sink and they slipped right back into their SamandDeanna space without thought, laughing as they bumped into each other to make the other take longer in their race for most dishes washed.

If asked to describe the look in her dad’s eyes when they emerged triumphantly tied but partially soaked, she would have been at a loss besides to say it made her nervous and oddly ashamed.

Predictably, Dad reined her in that night when she emerged from the bathroom in her pajamas and wordlessly pulled her back onto his bed. She didn’t look at Sam as she slipped under the covers.

A sleepless hour later, the possessive hand on The Bump slid south. She whispered “Dad” in as close as a chastising voice as she dared.

“It’s close enough to Christmas, don’t you want to give me my present?” he said, hushed behind her ear.

“Sam’s right there.”

“We’ve done it while he was asleep plenty times.”

Sam wasn’t asleep. She knew it and if she knew it then her dad damn well did too. The hand slid into her panties and she barely kept in a scared whimper. One of the last times they’d done this, she’d been bruised for a week after. If he didn’t give a shit that Sam was obviously awake, god only knew what he’d do this time around.

“Not while he was in the same room.”

A hiss left her against her will when he started touching her too-dry clit.

“It’s only a month before I finally take all of what’s mine, darlin’. Finding out beforehand will give him time to adjust to the thought, don’t you think?”

There was a bite to his tone that did not sit well with her. The thought that she could call out to Sam, or otherwise get him to stop pretending to sleep, flitted through her. But they’d come this far without incident. As hard as her heart was beating, she still only had a month of this to go. She was in the home stretch. She could do this.

She cooperated in letting her shorts and panties be slid down, and let him position her. The pained grunt she made when he shoved into her ass with only precum easing the way was loud in the room and she hated herself for it. Sam was probably already vibrating with wrath a few feet away; she had to try not to make this even harder for him. Home stretch.

Thankfully her dad went slow, so although she felt the painful drag against her barely damp insides even more than usual, at least there wasn’t much noise. Right up until she started feeling his knot swelling when it hit her and he picked up speed enough that both their breathing turned ragged and there were tiny slapping noises.

“Slow down, he’ll hear,” she whispered desperately, as if there was any chance Sam hadn't already heard.

“Let him hear,” her dad said in an aggressive, angry tone that made her blood run cold. His voice was so quiet she could barely hear him even though his mouth was against her ear. “You think I didn’t notice? I fucking raised you, I know all your tells, and you’ve been practically mooning at each other. You __reek__ of him. But you know what?” He tilted them so she was lying partially, painfully, on The Bump and he could get even deeper while his thrusts turned vicious, punching tiny noises out of her that she tried to stifle with her hand. Oh, god, Sam. “I forgive you. I knew you were going to get desperate leading up to this, figured you’d find someone to latch on to, to manipulate into trying to ‘save you’. Why do you think I replaced your birth control with placebos? Or poked holes in our condoms? I guess Sam's not much of an alpha if he doesn't mind knocked-up seconds."

Her world narrowed down to the pain and the quiet, malicious voice breaking through the static in her brain.

“Pretty sure I got you pregnant the first time I did that. Y'see, sweetheart, your body knows it’s mine even if you can’t get that through your pretty little head.” He pushed said head into the pillow, almost blocking her airways. “And very soon, none of what you’ve been doing with your little brother will matter. If he doesn’t get with the program, I’ll just have to make him watch until the message gets through. And for his sake, I hope he doesn’t try anything stupid.”

The knot slammed into her and her sharp cry echoed in the room.

“How does that sound?” her dad said with finality.

The pull on her sore insides was too much to not roll with him to let him hold her close, hands possessive on The Bump again. She tried to ignore it, focused on steadying her breathing out of the hitching sobs. An apology to Sam burned in her but acknowledging he had been awake the whole time might spur him or their dad into action.

She just wanted it to be over. Why couldn’t it be over already?

:::

Sam wasn’t in the room when she woke up in their dad’s arms and she almost started the day off with yet another panic attack before the door clicked and he came in with a drink carrier full of coffees and a box of donuts. He set it all down and approached the bed slowly. She took his offered hand and let him gently tug her into standing. A glance back showed that their dad was still asleep. She supposed she should be grateful he kept driving through the night when he visited since it made him crash hard after all the excitement.

A gentle hand turned her face back to Sam, who was looking at her with those puppy eyes.  
“Merry Christmas. I know it’s a stupid question, but are you okay?”

She wanted to feel him wrapped around her, wanted him to take her weight and let her cry. Instead she wrapped her arms across her chest, flinching away when she brushed The Bump, who didn’t seem to have stopped squirming since the night before. Maybe it was worried about her.

“No permanent damage.” A lie. Pregnancy altered one’s body for life, and she couldn’t imagine what kind of therapy could possibly heal her. What kind of mate was she going to be if she kept lying to him?

He didn’t protest when she grabbed clothes from her drawer and headed to the bathroom without another word. She stared at the evidence on the toilet paper. If she had really wanted, there had been countless times over the past decade when she could have taken a used condom straight to the police after her dad passed out. There weren't a whole lot of conclusions that could be drawn from her body showing signs of recent sexual abuse and a condom covered in their fluids. She even could have claimed that Dad had forced her and Sam to break laws. It wouldn’t have even been a lie. But she never did.

The prospect of going into foster care had been daunting—too many unknowns. But if she had told Bobby, especially before he cocked a shotgun at Dad, maybe he would have stepped up to take them in. Or Pastor Jim. But she never did.

When it came down to it, she kept her mouth shut because she was pathetic and couldn’t stand the thought of losing more people. Being around her dad may have been painful and toxic, but he was still her dad, one of only two family members she had left, who had fallen apart when her mom died. She had been picking up the pieces long before he first touched her, and by then loyalty and sacrifice were already bad habits. And Sam asking about their mom when he was little had been painful enough; she hadn’t wanted to deal with having to tell him his one remaining parent was a scumbag. So she stayed, protected Sam as much as she could from their dad.

When had she lost sight of that? Nothing in the entire world mattered as much as Sam’s safety, preferably his happiness. And being dragged into all her shit? Not safe, not very conducive to anything but hurt. She couldn’t even imagine what he felt like after having to listen to the night before. If Dad found them after they escaped, it would be so much worse. They still hadn't come up with a solid plan for that emergency. Dad was skilled in tracking and getting his target whatever the costs, and forcing a mateship wasn't the only way to hurt them; it wasn't even close to the worst. If they were smart, she and Sam would be looking over their shoulders until they were well in their fifties.

She cleaned herself of all the evidence, brushed her teeth, got dressed, and practiced what she would say in her head.

Sam needed no convincing to put his jacket back on, grab his coffee, and join her outside while their dad was in the shower.

Shallow snow crunched underfoot as she led the way to the Impala, and the metal of the trunk was chilly and slightly damp when she brushed it clean to sit on. Sam fell in place to lean next to her, both facing the street and sipping their coffee. It was the first time she’d seen the over-the-top BBQ place without any lights on. It was kind of creepy, like an abandoned amusement park.

She indulged in a couple minutes of relishing the easy silence between them, their synced breathing, the slight tilt to Sam’s lean to be a tiny bit closer to her. She gathered her nerve.

“I think we should stop.” Slight relief that it came out firm.

“...Stop what?”

She waved a hand between them and risked meeting his eyes. “This. Us. It’s pointless.”

Sam stood to his full height, face confused and upset, shoulders tense. “The hell are you talking about, ‘pointless’?”

"I mean,” she shrugged helplessly, “what did you think was going to happen, really? We'd skip town and suddenly be Ozzie and Harriet? That he'd leave us alone, lose interest rather than come after me and his kid and drag me back by my hair—" She took a steadying breath. "We'll save ourselves a lot of grief and inconvenience if we skip to the ending." He’d be safe.

"_ _ Save ourselves grief _ _ _ ? _" Sam's gaze was angry but searching and she tried not to attract suspicion. "What the fuck did he say to you?" Damn.

"Nothing I shouldn't have already figured out. Seriously, call the school, tell them we broke up—or, hell, tell them I'm dead so they're lenient on you—and see if it's too late to switch over to a normal room and start the spring semester. You can still have the apple pie life you always drooled over." She attempted a smile. "I've trucked along this far just fine, you don't have to worry about me."

Sam stared at her for a moment like he was waiting for her to say ‘just kidding’. She didn’t. She wasn’t.

"Wow. You know me better than anyone else on the planet and you're still such a dumbass."

Deanna huffed out an indignant ice cloud.

"You literally made me promise to __kill you__ if he got hold of you. And you think I'm not going to worry? You said you'd let me help and I'll be damned if I don't hold you to that. If you stay, I stay." The manipulative brat turned on the puppy eyes. "Don't make me break my promise."

So many regrets. She really should have talked their dad into keeping it to the bedroom. Sam would have never found out, would have left months ago to a bright future, maybe would have invited her to be nice but probably wouldn't have been upset if she said no. He would have been out of harm's way, wouldn't have been burdened by any of this. She should have let him down gently at the very beginning.

"Sam, you can't—"

No fear ran through her when Sam surged closer and held her face in his too-big hands. She was going to miss being touched by someone she trusted.

"Stop telling me what to do with my life," he said firmly. "I love you, Deanna, okay? I don't know how I can make that stick for you, but it's true. When I say I'm going to be wherever you are, I fucking mean it. So unless you can look me in the eye and tell me that you would still stay if Dad wasn't threatening you—or whatever he said to you—I'm not going to leave you here with him. I'm not letting you give up that easy."

God, he meant it, too. Her heart felt lodged in her throat, lovesick, and her hands tingled with the need to ground herself with the feel of his life-warm skin. They were so fucked.

"That's what she said."

Sam blinked at her, then his face dropped into a Look that clearly said she could fuck off.

"You're a real asshole sometimes, y'know."

"I try." She sniffed, cold and emotional, and broke out of his hold to glance back at the room door. "We're seriously going to need a better plan for after we make a break for it if we're really doing this."

"We've got a month. Push comes shove we hide out at Bobby's. I hear Canada's nice. Scenic, and we might not be wallowing in debt from hospital fees after the birth."

She snorted and turned back towards him to so he could see how supremely unimpressed she was with that suggestion. "Canada? You’re going with _ _ Canada _ _?"

The room door swung open on the tail end of her question and Sam snapped his mouth shut on his reply.

"What are you two doing out in this cold, talking about Canada for?" Their dad jerked his head in an order to get back inside.

She and Sam exchanged a quick glance as she hopped down. They kept their distance as they walked over. Dad might already know but there was no sense in antagonizing him further.

"Sam was trying to name all the places colder than here. Apparently Canada came to mind before, y'know, Iceland or Finland or Alaska. Guess the cold shrinks more than one thing, eh, Sammy?"

Sam feigned elbowing her as he passed her further into the room that was muggy from the shower in comparison to the crisp winter outside. It was like a hot flash all over again.

"It’s Sam.” Then to their dad, “We wanted to get some fresh air, enjoy the seasonal weather."

"You really think it's a good idea to let your pregnant sister hang out in freezing temperatures?"

Just like that, Sam slid back into contempt. She really wished his fuse was longer.

"She's an adult, she can make her own decisions. Just because she's carrying your—"

Deanna tried to cover her sharp, warning breath with a fake sneeze, but Dad's hand had already stopped halfway on its slide to her lower back. There was no way he hadn't noticed it or how Sam was gritting his teeth.

"Carrying my what?"

Deanna's pulse was thumping hard and she internally begged Sam to let it go. They were so precarious with pretending nothing was out of the ordinary with their family. Acknowledging it in front of their dad in broad fucking daylight couldn't end in anything other than disaster. She was so tired of being scared.

Sam shook his head, eyes averted.

"Finish the sentence, son."

"Your grandkid." Sam straightened up with an inhale. "You're right. We're family, I should be looking after her."

She hoped to God their dad didn't call out the bitterness in Sam's voice, didn't take it as a sign that Sam was officially not with the program. She didn’t know if she could survive Sam directly witnessing her debasement all over again. She shuddered to think of the filth that would come out of their dad if he was trying to make a point.

He grunted at Sam in appeasement and the topic was dropped.

Home stretch, she reminded herself and tried to telepathically send Sam. Home fuckin’ stretch.

:::

Of course Dad wanted to cuddle her on his bed during their after-lunch marathon. John McClane’s badassery was hard to focus on when ‘finish the sentence, son’ kept echoing in her head. So many close calls. If Dad decided to stick around there’d be even more. Plus, when would they find time to discuss a better plan for when they reached Stanford? Every time she dared to look over at Sam on the other bed it was to find him frowning deep in thought.

They paused midway through _Die Hard with a Vengeance_ for cheap TV dinners that had to be reheated one-by-one with turkey so tough even their hunting knives struggled to get through it. Deanna regretted not having figured out a way to cook something real without her ankles swelling to the size of balloons.

Their dad had fetched a bottle of whiskey from his truck while they were waiting and offered Sam some. The room had been an alcohol-free zone for the past several months so Deanna wouldn’t be tempted. Sam had never really liked the taste, barely liked beer, so Dad haddn't pushed when Sam said no thanks. It wasn’t long at all before their dad was buzzed bordering on drunk. He was making his way through a story about a recent hunt when Deanna decided to clear the table and put everything in the bathroom sink to soak. When she picked up the salt and pepper shakers to put them back next to the coffee maker, her dad’s hand darted out to grab her wrist in a vise grip, startling her into dropping the little plastic cones. All she could think while she was being pulled into his lap right in front of Sam was that she couldn’t remember whether spilled salt was supposed to be tossed over the left or the right shoulder in order to fend the devil off. Both she and Sam were stiff when their dad tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Sammy?”

She stared straight ahead and tried to find where the brushstroke fish pattern of the wallpaper repeated, then caught herself and tried to focus. She couldn't zone out and leave Sam to deal with Dad alone.

“Under a month until she’s legally on the market. We’d be beating alphas back with a stick.” She jumped when his hand landed heavy on The Bump, which didn't appreciate the attention if the tumbling motion was anything to go by. “And then not long after, there'll be a brand new Winchester in the world. Ain’t that right?”

He nuzzled into her hair with a deep inhale, and in her periphery she could see Sam’s fists clench on the table.

“Why’re you shaking, baby girl? She’s a nervous little thing, isn’t she?” He peeked out at Sam and started stroking her abdomen. “Always worried about you, about homework, about cops coming across something they have no business seeing.” He pulled away and she could see the cold glint and smug smile he focused on Sam. “She ever tell you who the father is?”

The hand on her wrist relocated to the back of her neck to hold her in place when she tried to stand and get away.

“No sir.”

“You fucked her without even knowing who beat you to it?”

She whimpered and screwed her eyes shut. Maybe it was all a dream. Any moment now the bassinet void would swallow her again.

Sam was silent.

“Y’see, I have a hard time believing that. And what you started saying earlier, this morning...it makes me wonder if one of her fears came true. If her precious little Sammy found out how much of a daddy’s girl she really is. And that begs the question of why _t___he fuck__ you thought you could have a piece of something that’s mine.”

“She doesn't belong to you, she’s a goddamn person, who doesn’t need your permission—”

Suddenly Deanna was turned and pushed face-first into the table, knocking the whiskey bottle over, and it soaked into her hair and stung her nose. She brought her hands up on the table to shove backwards, but froze when the hold on her nape tightened.

“**Stay right there, baby girl**.”

Her hands wouldn’t move when her balance was thrown off from him standing up from under her, and she barely glimpsed Sam holding the table steady for her.

“What the fuck are you doing?” came her brother’s hiss. “Leave her alone, you sick fuck!”

“What am I doing?” His knuckles brushed her ass in a familiar motion and she yelled and tried to yank herself off the goddamn table with life-or-death desperation. The sound of his belt buckle clacking as he undid his pants was loud as he spoke, “I’m doing what I should have done ages ago. I mean, I didn’t exactly wait before I fucked your pretty little cunt, did I, sweetheart? Should have heard her, Sammy, begging so sweet.”

Sam growled with a fury she felt in her bones and the table jarred when he sprang up and lunged for their dad.

“Sam! No!”

A couple frustrated, helpless tears joined the whiskey as she struggled against the alpha command holding her in place, distraught at the sounds of the struggle behind her. Sam had to be okay. It wasn’t an option for him to not be okay.

“You son of a bitch, if you hurt him I _ _ swear to god _ _—”

Sam stumbled back into view, blood from his nose and mouth coloring his snarl, and she shouted his name when their dad tackled him. She could barely see the scuffle—most of her information came from the grunts, most of them pained, most of them Sam’s. She had to help him, god, she had to. Maybe she could break the table. If she could break the table just right, she might be able to use it to hit her dad with. How the fuck would she break it while attached to it, though?

The struggle stopped with a dull thump and when her dad shifted back she could barely see him dropping his hold on Sam's limp head, way too close to the edge of the dresser.

“Sam? Sam!”

Her dad lurched up and swayed slightly on his way back to her.

“Uppity little brat.”

“What the fuck did you do to him? Sam!” The skirt of her dress rucked up and fingers tucked under her panties and she thrashed—salt and pepper, drinks and napkins all going flying. “Get the fuck away from me!” Her ass was exposed to the room and a hand slick with god-knew-what brushed against her as her dad pulled himself out of his jeans. She froze when she saw Sam move.

“Oh, god, Sam! Say something!”

“Get—” his voice was wrecked.

She bared her teeth and tried to kick backwards when her dad told her to stay goddamn still, and she felt his dick glance off her. Sam got an elbow under him.

“Sam! That’s it, come on, baby, you're okay!”

There was pressure against her labia and panic and dread that her worst fear was about to come true had barely swelled to suffocate her when Sam finally got the words out.

“**Get away from him, Deanna**.”

That was all she needed to jerk back away from the table and headbutt their dad backwards in his nose and jab him with an elbow. She shoved the table over and narrowly avoided his grasping hands as she ran for the bathroom. There was a window in there that her dad had no chance of getting through but if she could get a good angle she should be able to fit, Bump and all. It opened into the courtyard, which meant her dad would have to circle around the entire building to get her, and surely someone was holed up in the joint besides them. She was desperate enough to have the cops called.

The snarl she gave when she was caught around the chest was downright feral and she fought and cussed as she was half-dragged, half-carried to be pinned against the bathroom sink.

“You think it’s that easy to get away from me? **Hold still**. How many times do I have to tell you?” He yanked her head back so she could see his loveless, hungry face in the mirror as he shoved into her, fucking deja vu. “You were made for me.”

“**Get ** _ _ **away** _ _ **from him, Deanna**!” came again, closer than the dresser was, but the knot was already swelling eager against her and it’d only take one good push and a bite—

Her hand closed around a handle in the sink and she blindly swung it behind her, jabbing her dad in the side. He jerked back and she didn’t fucking hesitate—whirled around and swung up towards his jaw, hard and fast enough to land like a powerful left hook as she followed through. She had barely registered that the texture of the impact was all wrong when something hot sprayed onto her arm and face heavier than the mist of the waterfall all those months ago. Wet gasps wheezed out of her dad as he stumbled back, hands clutching at the gaping wound slashed into his neck, blood spurting out between his fingers.

“...Dad?”

The cheap towel rack popped out of its holder when he tried to catch himself with it and he fell bodily against the wall. His eyes were already starting to lose focus when she moved forward, hands too unsure to try to help staunch the blood.

“Oh god, Dad, I’m sorry! I’m so sorr—I didn’t mean to! Are you—oh, Jesus!”

She flinched back when he reached out towards her, but he still managed to catch the fabric over The Bump. She instinctively smacked him away and his arm fell, completely limp. Her own chest tightened as she watched his slow to a stop.

“I’m sorry!” She doubled over as much as she could with The Bump, who was rioting inside her. Her hands were slick when she wrapped them around herself, and the knife made a dull clatter when she finally dropped it. “Ohhhh fuck, I’m sorry!”

“Deanna? Are you o—Jesus fucking Christ!”

Shuddering sobs were wracking through her and Sam was blurry in the doorway.

“I didn’t mean to! I swear, I didn’t—” her voice cracked into a miserable whine and her head throbbed with the force of her crying.

“It’s okay. Jesus, Deanna, it’s okay.” He edged in towards her and laid a hand on her back, leaned down to meet her eyes. “Even if you meant to do it, it’d be okay. You were defending yourself. If he hadn’t attacked you, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“__I__ had the knife! __I__ fuckin’—”

“Did what you had to. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me for giving you that command.” She shook her head hard, wet hair sticking to her face. She couldn’t think that. Couldn’t. “Listen to me.”

He guided her into standing straight and wrapped her tight in a hug. They were both covered in blood already getting tacky. God, she never wanted this. She had tried so goddamn hard to avoid anything remotely like this.

“We need to get out of here in case anyone heard us and called the cops for a domestic disturbance or something. And we need to burn his remains. I’m going to need your help getting him into his truck and then following me in the Impala.” He held her away a little to look her in the eyes. “Can you do that for me?”

She shook her head. “I don’t—”

“You’re strong, Deanna, okay? How many monsters have you taken out single-handedly? This is just another one of those. And we hide what we do from civilians. I need you to hold it together, okay, just long enough for us to get on the road. Can you do that for me?”

He was talking to her like she was a scared child. Maybe she was. Maybe she was still four and in the throes of one of those nightmares that had made her wake up screaming, the only noise she made for months after the fire. Maybe she’d watched a movie she wasn’t supposed to and had turned the only person she could rely on into a predator, had turned the person she had saved into the person who saved her.

Or maybe she’d just fucking murdered the man who raised her and had watched him bleed out in a shitty motel bathroom because of something she hadn’t even meant to do.

When she licked her lips she tasted salt, whiskey, and iron. Her dad's Holy Trinity. The family business. She looked up at Sam, at his worried, bloody face. Their dad had drawn that blood. Another monster that'd tried to take Sam from her. The man who'd given her Sam in the first place.

"Deanna?"

It was only the two of them now.

"You with me?"

Wasn't that ultimately what they'd wanted?

She let out a shuddering exhale, smeared blood across her cheeks as she wiped away her tears, and nodded.

"Yeah, Sammy. I'm with you."

:::

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *evil laughter* when I was first writing this I was self-conscious about the lack of blood and then Bees inspired me and viola <3 <3 I love it
> 
> Feedback welcome and often cherished~


	11. we are one

Balmy air shifted through Deanna’s hair as she got out of the car and stretched. There were the palm trees she’d been expecting, but also several other tree species and low shrubs and creeping ivy all along the front of the brick building facade. It was pretty. What she’d seen of the campus as a whole seemed pretty: clean cut, fancy, green. She felt out of place already.

“Are you getting her or should I?”

She glanced over at Sam, who was staring at the building too. There was no doubt in her that his eyes had the same bright, excited shine they’d had the past week of preparing for the trip to Palo Alto to finally move into family housing.

“I will, since you’re too busy gawking. Didn’t you already see all this when you did that orientation and tour stuff?”

“Yeah, but it’s different now.”

Nerd.

She sighed and opened the driver’s side back door. The Kid was passed out, chubby chin dropped on her chest while she drooled like an old man who fell asleep watching sports recaps. She startled awake, though, when Deanna went to unlatch the carrier from the base, and promptly started up with the soft crying that meant she was hungry. Of course.

Sam peeked in on them and gave Deanna a sympathetic smile.

“I guess I can go ahead and see what we need to do for check in. You going to be okay out in the car or should I go ask if they have a room?”

Deanna snatched the light cotton blanket designated for these purposes from the side of the diaper bag nestled on the floorboard.

“I’ll roll the windows down, it's fine.”

“Okay. Be back soon.”

“Have fun storming the castle.”

Sam gave her a quick, nervous smile before heading towards the building entrance. Deanna slung herself into the backseat and rolled down the windows.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, kid. Gimme a dang minute here.”

She watched the other families milling around as The Kid suckled under the blanket. As ever, she was worried as shit. What if people knew they didn’t belong here? What if they found out she and Sam having the same last name had nothing to do with them being mates? What were she and Sam going to say when they asked about The Kid?

But watching the excited children flitting in front of their parents and back like hyperactive boomerangs put a small smile on her face and she found herself stroking The Kid’s impossibly soft hair under the blanket. It might do Deanna some good to be around happy families. God knew it’d be the first time since she was younger than those children. There might even be some other littler ones they could make those “play date” things people on the internet always gushed about with.

Who knew? This was going to be the first time they would be around so many people in the same situation as them. Well, almost same. Most of the others probably weren’t banging their sibling or dealing with nightmares about their dad assaulting them, that time they killed him, and burning to death on a ceiling. At least she hoped not.

Burping was done outside the car out of basic respect for the upholstery, and Deanna did the weird bouncing-as-she-walked thing that worked so well for Sam. He had perfect timing coming back as Deanna was strapping The Kid back in.

“Seems pretty straightforward,” he said as he showed her a key. “Ready to go see our new home?” He looked down at the infant in the carrier hanging off her arm and cooed, “Ready, sweet pea?”

Deanna shook her head and started walking. “You keep calling her that, it’s gonna be her name. Like the baby in Popeye.”

“Does that make you Olive Oyl?”

“Gross, dude. She’s not even bang-able. I’m much more of a Daphne.”

“Hmm, I was always more of a Velma man myself.”

He grinned when she looked over at him, and she stage whispered to the baby, “I think he’s aiming to try out the couch our first night here, what do you think?”

The Kid’s babbling shot up an octave and Deanna smirked at Sam.

“Tempting fate with going against the women in your family, man, tempting fate.”

“I’m not ‘going against’ anyone," he said with a light scoff.

“Whatever, bitch, we know better.”

:::

The inside of the dorm looked spotless. The main part had a kitchen with a built-in microwave, bar with two stools, sofa, coffee table, TV and stand, and an armchair. The main bedroom had a queen-sized bed, two desks with chairs, and two nightstands. The smaller bedroom had a crib, rocking chair, and what Sam claimed was a changing table. Not only did they get a bathroom all to themselves, it was much less skeevy than she’d been dreading.

Everything was blank and nondescript in all the right ways.

“This is pretty nice, right? You can see the pool and the playground from the patio.”

“I think she’s still a bit young for either of those things.”

“If we watch her close enough.... I swear there’s a thing about babies and swimming.”

Deanna set the baby carrier snug in the corner of the couch facing the middle so The Kid couldn’t flail herself onto the floor—she had some powerful kicks when she set her mind to it.

A knock on the door a couple minutes later almost made Deanna hit her head on the edge of the counter where she was scoping out the sink plumbing. There was a perky “hi!” from the door when Sam opened it, and Deanna rounded the counter to see the epitome of a California girl grinning at Sam—blonde, tan, legs for miles. Deanna wasn’t familiar with feeling jealous and she wasn’t keen to change that. Still, her shoulders relaxed when Sam’s responding greeting was in a normal, even tone.

“I’m your Resident Assistant, your go-to person if you have any questions or concerns or anything needs fixing. According to my roster, you must be Sam and,” she leaned in and aimed the sunny grin at her, “Deanna, right? I’m Jess! It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

Deanna stiffened again when Jess’s gaze zeroed in on The Kid and she invited herself in to get closer to coo nonsense at her, which the overly agreeable little punk echoed enthusiastically, none-the-wiser. It’d been almost exactly six months and Deanna still wasn’t used to people getting all up in their business just because there was a baby involved.

“This must be the little one! My roster usually has the kids’ names, too, but there wasn’t anything for you two—I was a little worried there had been a mix up in assignments.” She laughed and started playing peek-a-boo. Deanna looked over at Sam for help, who shrugged. Useless.

“What’s their name?”

“Um.”

So useless.

“We’ve kinda been going with ‘The Kid’,” Deanna said.

“Ooh, like Billy?”

No, not like Billy. “Yup.”

“That’s a pretty cool nickname, The Kid,” she told the baby. She turned back to them, an apologetic smile on her pretty face. “I get a little carried away with the younger ones. I mostly stopped by to introduce myself and to let you two know that there’s a mandatory meeting tonight at 5:30. We’ll have pizza but feel free to bring your own stuff. We’ll be going over all the boring rules and things.” She walked back into the hallway with a last reminder, “Mandatory! See you three tonight!”

Sam and Deanna stared at each other for a moment after he closed the door.

“Are all people in California that perky?”

“God, I hope not.”

The Kid joined in their laughing and Deanna was still smiling at her when Sam turned all soppy-eyed serious.

"You know you're going to have to name her soon, right? I know I keep bugging you but we're going to have the same neighbors for months now and we'll be going to meetings like tonight’s and other stuff. We can't put it off any longer."

"Look,” she said lightly, “it's not my fault you've shot down all my suggestions."

"Because they were literal jokes."

"Rude."

"I'm serious."

"I know you are. This is like the fifth time you've been serious. It's no one's business what her name is."

"That doesn't even make sense. People need to know what to call others."

"Then there's nothing wrong with 'The Kid' or 'the Winchester kid'!"

"Deanna." He waited like an elementary teacher for her to look at him like she was a misbehaving student. She hoped she didn't seem like such a dick when she did the same to him. "I know it's hard, but you decided to keep her. You need to take responsibility and treat her like a normal kid."

"Fuck you." There was venom in her voice, but it was defensive. Judging by the infuriatingly empathetic look Sam gave her, he knew that.

"I'm going to go double check if there’s anything else we need to do and then start bringing our things in. Call me if you need anything."

Once the door was closed behind him, she slumped down onto the stiff sofa and looked over at the baby facing her. The Kid's limbs were bouncing excitedly and her eyes were bright and alert. Her irises had seemed to finally settle a couple weeks ago into brown on the inside and green on the outside. It made Deanna uncomfortable as fuck, not that she'd told Sam. He probably already knew anyways. And it wasn’t like The Kid had done it on purpose.

Fat little hands reached out to her and Deanna obligingly unbuckled her and sat her on her lap.

"You know I don't hate you, right?"

The Kid babbled back.

"I keep trying to focus on how your dad also came from your sperm donor and turned out fine—good, even—but it's... it's slippery. Sins of the father and all. But if you grow up to look like him? Or present as an alpha?” She sighed. “I don't know how well I could handle that."

She fished a soft, jingly giraffe toy out from where it'd been lost in the car seat and handed it to The Kid, who was immediately preoccupied with putting it in her mouth.

"I wanna do right by you. It may take me a while, but we'll get there, promise."

The excited squeal and little kicks when Deanna gently tugged a socked foot didn't give her much choice to not smile. After all the shit leading up to the birth, Deanna was grateful she at least got an easy-going baby rather than a fussy demon spawn. Her bad luck had to break at some point, she guessed.

There was a knock on the door that Deanna hoped was just Sam and not another perky community member. The Kid held up her end of the deal when relocated to Deanna's hip for the short trip across the room.

It was not Sam, but rather a vaguely handsome white man probably in his mid-40s wearing jeans and a polo with the university logo on it. He didn't seem particularly perky, although there were creases in his cheeks that suggested frequent smiling.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes! I'm afraid I need to come in and check your air filter. We were supposed to have it done last week, but two of the staff up and left, and I'm a new hire so I'm still getting the hang of all the dang paperwork, and a water main busted on the other side of campus—you know how it is." Not perky, but dryly expressive, like they knew each other.

Deanna stepped back to let him in.

"Thank you kindly."

As soon as he was passing them, The Kid burst out in ear-piercing wails that had Deanna second guessing the whole not-demon-spawn thing. She cringed as she closed the door but the man didn't bat an eye.

"Uh oh, stranger danger already started, huh?" He grinned at them before heading towards The Kid’s room. "How old?"

Deanna checked the diaper. Clear.

"Six months tomorrow."

"You don't say? A Valentine's baby!"

"Yup. Drama queen from the very beginning." The Kid was bright red, cheeks shiny with tears that kept coming. "What's wrong, kiddo? You're fed, burped, and dry." The reminder didn't help, and Deanna gave in to the urge to click her tongue, shush, and start bouncing again. "Come on, sweetie, it's okay."

Deanna had barely gotten her quieter when the man came back and the volume picked right back up. It was going to be a problem if she did this at the meeting later. Maybe Sam had had a point about Deanna needing to suck it up and take The Kid on errands so she saw people other than them and Bobby.

"Yeah, filter needs replacing. Is it okay if I stop by sometime tomorrow?"

"Sure."

"I have a master key—is it okay if I let myself in? Don't wanna scare anyone. Well," the creases deepened in a smile at The Kid that set Deanna's hair on end, "not anymore than I already am."

"Yeah, that's fine." More than anything she wanted him to leave so her eardrums weren't in threat of busting anymore. "Whatever you need to do."

"Excellent. I may or may not see you tomorrow, then." He mimed tipping a hat at them as he crossed the threshold back into the breezeway.

For a split second, right before his face was out of sight, it looked like his eye flashed from a brown ring to a full moon coated in gold and sulfur. A shiver went up her spine and her heart started sprinting. The Kid's wailing somehow spiked even louder before Deanna shut the door. She patted the tiny back, closed her eyes, and focused on keeping her breathing normal.

There had been a few more nightmares scattered through the months since the first one in October. A month ago she'd started obsessively checking the weather in Sioux Falls, Palo Alto, and the main routes from one to another for anything suspicious. Then she started double-checking salt lines and carrying a flask of holy water at all times. Hallucinations were new, though. The day after The Kid's half-year anniversary could not come soon enough. Deanna really fucking hoped the fear of going out like her mom would pass with it. Especially considering the best warding would involve vandalizing the dorm room and Sam had put a hard stop on that suggestion.

"Shh shh shh, we're okay, everything's okay, honey," she shook away the unease and focused on the baby, who wasn't shrieking anymore but who was still crying. "_ _ Heyyy, Jude _ _ ," The Kid startled slightly and looked at Deanna with rapt attention. She'd never sung to her before, and she was sure neither Sam nor Bobby had. " _ _ Don't make it bad / Take a sad song and make it better-r-r / Remember to let her into your heart _ _ _ — _ Oh."

The Kid was looking at her with wide eyes while docilely mouthing at the toy probably getting dirty from tears and snot. Deanna stared back as she wrestled a baby wipe out of the pack in the diaper bag.

"What d'you think?" Deanna asked as The Kid tried to escape the cold wipe down with a small protesting whine but no tears. "Judelina? Juderella? Judette? Wait, that one might be a real name."

Deanna sighed and set the baby wipe on the counter when she discovered the lack of a trash can. Good thing Bobby had insisted on giving them free room and board while they were waiting to move. The Wal-Mart was probably going to be crawling with other new students and entourages. Maybe she could bribe Sam with a promise of a leisurely blowjob upon his triumphant solo return. No, God only knew what he'd come back with. She should maybe see if The Kid was up for another quick nap in case the drive over hadn't been enough.

"Mary Judith?" Deanna asked once they were settled on the couch, lying down belly to belly. "Very Catholic, might be handy in our line of work."

The Kid grinned wide as she propped herself up with tiny hands on Deanna's tits, just heavy enough to be painful. She cooed excitedly when Deanna picked her up for readjustment.

"Seriously?? All my cool rock suggestions over the months and you're going for the nun name?"

Little limbs flailed with the happy babbling. Probably no nap, then.

"You wanna be saddled with a nerdy-ass name that's your business, I guess. Just don't complain to me when no one wants to take Mother Superior Winchester to the prom." The soggy giraffe fell smack on Deanna's cheek. She sighed and shook it off. "Guess I could help. Jude could be a pretty cool nickname for a girl. I'd probably date a girl Jude. Especially if she had a skateboard and a good band t-shirt, so we should keep that in mind when you start school."

Fuck, in no time at all she would be growing up. Deanna would be cutting crusts off her sandwiches and patching up scraped knees and fighting with Sam about how much of a hunter they would raise her to be. Six exhausting, non-stop months in and she was still trying to wrap her head around how the little chestburster had turned out to be pretty damn adorable and how, as awkward as Deanna might be about it, she was looking forward to helping her grow up.

"So, compromise? You keep the prude name, I raise you to be a bad ass anyways?"

Sam walked in on them grinning at each other and paused halfway in the door.

"Should I be worried?"

Deanna smirked at him. "Our daughter and I have come to an agreement."

Sam gave her a surprised, pleased look.

"What?" she asked, suddenly defensive.

"Nothing, just. You've never called her that before."

Deanna was surrounded by weirdos. Good thing they were her weirdos.

"Know what else I hadn't called her before?"

:::

Wal-Mart had been a goddamn nightmare and Jude had only made it halfway through the trip before the clamor got to her and they had to take turns carrying her outside for a walk or to the quiet bathrooms. But that meant that she'd dozed through the mandatory meeting once people got the message to leave her alone and she'd passed out nice and easy in her new crib after a quick feeding.

Sam was setting up the basics—trash can, bed sheets, shower curtain, baby proofing—while Deanna was doing what warding he had given blessing to. She was going to have to wait for Gigantor to get the dried herbs situated on the tops of door jambs, but she was all over salt patrol. Except the window sills were being a pain in the ass. The bottom panels were consistently a few millimeters too short and didn't quite meet the wall, leaving little gaps that would not retain the salt enough to complete a line. Nothing she found worked well as a bridge or dam—too big or too flimsy, including the paint-safe tape. Deanna mentally added wood putty and caulk to their shopping list and moved on to tying warding charms to doorknobs, hiding weapons in strategic places, and painstakingly taping out devil's traps to hide under cheap no-slip bath mats posing as area rugs.

When she was done she found Sam on the couch with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. He startled when she pressed a cold beer—something Jess had told them and a dozen other families a couple hours ago in no uncertain terms was contraband—against his cheek.

"Think it's too late to call Bobby?"

Sam sipped and flipped open his phone as she tucked in next to him before answering.

"I think he'd prefer tonight over tomorrow." A pause as the call connected. "Hey, Bobby, putting you on speaker phone."

"About damn time you called. Was starting to think you'd forgotten me after a taste of shiny new college life."

"Sorry, been a busy day."

"Everything worked out, though? You three settling in okay?"

"Yeah, good so far—Deanna even finally named her daughter." Deanna's heart jumped to her throat. It was easier to hear the d-word when it wasn't only in relation to her. Less pressure that way. "You're never gonna guess what she ended up on."

"Hey, it was a joint decision. She's as much to blame as me."

"So? What's the poor kid stuck with? ZZ Zepp? Roberta Plant?"

"Don't even pretend you don't think ZZ Zepp would be an __awesome__ name. But we're going with Mary Judith. Jude for short."

There was a pause and Deanna started getting worried Bobby was about to tell them that was the name of some nun from the 1400s who slaughtered a whole convent when he finally said, "You're right, I wouldn't have guessed that. Surprisingly Catholic."

"That's what I said!"

Sam gave her a look a hair shy of affronted. "You're the one who came up with it!"

Bobby and Sam chatted for a bit, going back and forth about the supernatural significance of names and how to acquire textbooks the cheapest. Deanna closed her eyes and smiled as she listened. They'd all grown close since she and Sam had shown up on Bobby's doorstep at 5am the morning after It all went down. He had taken one look at them—her heavily pregnant with blood under her nails, Sam with a beating-swollen face, both still smelling like a pyre—said "no shame in doing what you need to survive," let them in, and hadn't brought it up since. He had been awkward but gentle about the pregnancy and helping out with The Kid after she was born. He tried to hide it, but the man had a paternal streak a mile wide. He was going to be a good grandfather figure.

The conversation hit a lull and Deanna rejoined.

"Hey, Bobby?"

"Yeah?"

"I know you said save it for your funeral, but seriously, thank you for—"

"What about 'over my dead body' do you not get?" he said, gruffness not quite concealing the warmth. "We're as good as family. Family doesn't need to be thanked."

Sam looked over at her when the throat clearing on the line sounded suspiciously teary.

"Now you two get resting. Big adjustments take a lot out of a person, and without me picking up you two's slack, The Kid—sorry, _ _ Jude _ _ _ — _is going to need even more of you idgits' time and energy. You ever run into trouble or need a break, gimme a call." A pause. "Hell, drop a dime anyways."

They were both grinning. Bobby Singer: big, awkward, grumpy sap.

"Will do, Bobby."

"Talk to you later."

" 'night."

They sat in cozy silence for a while after the call ended: Deanna leaning on Sam, his arm around her waist, both sipping their beer. It'd been a long day, but it was the first one of their official New Beginning™. Steady housing, neighbors who knew you and your kid, a cookout mixer in a couple days to celebrate school starting. Soon enough they'd be bickering about who would go to PTA meetings.

She wasn't real sure how she felt about it all. Deep down she'd been pining for it since she was little. But then she became a hunter. So much of her had been wrapped up in surviving her dad, protecting Sam, and getting to save lives every once in a while. It was shitty, but it was all she had. And now she was supposed to flip a switch and be normal.

No, that wasn't fair. Sam might be all gaga-eyed over their new life like a puppy being offered a bone, but he'd been good about reassuring her that he wasn't going to push for her to pretend to be someone she wasn't. That included A Good Little Housewife Omega. Honestly, Sam had been everything she could have hoped for from a mate. As fucked up as their situation—their _ _ lives _ _ _ — _might be, he was her little slice of heaven. She should reward him for that, reinforce good behavior.

She hummed when his slow, wandering nuzzling reached her mating mark. The thing was practically a direct line to her clit if she was relaxed enough. And she was certainly relaxed.

"That a good 'hmm' or a 'not now' 'hmm'?" Sam whispered into her ear, all soft and sexy, the brat.

She was relaxed and still had some energy in her yet. The bottle clinked when she set it on the coffee table.

"That was a 'let's lock down for the night so I can ride you within an inch of your life' 'hmm'."

Sam was out from under her so fast she barely caught her fall. The sliding balcony door had already been double-checked for lock and bar by the time she caught up with what had happened. Someone was eager. Actually, she couldn't remember the last time they had sex that wasn't a covert quickie in the junk yard out of respect for Bobby's sanity. Time to fucking fix that.

All doors to the outside locked and barricaded, all windows locked, all herbs in place, all salt lines tutted at, all babies checked on one last time for the night, and Sam did his usual manhandling-while kissing-her-breathless move until she was on the first sheets they'd ever owned, bought and laundered weeks ago and waiting impatiently to be broken in. They were far from Egyptian cotton, but they were soft against Deanna's bare skin and didn't scratch at all when they decided to go for languid missionary with overly intimate eye contact instead.

Classic. Raw. She totally didn't cry a little during her second orgasm from all the emotion, and she'd deny the noise she made when Sam knotted her until the day she died if she had to.

"You know what I might miss?"

Sam hummed inquiringly into her hair, not moving an inch from his position on top of and wrapped around her, face tucked against the crown of her head. Good. She didn't want him to move. And not just because she wanted to bask in the hard-earned feeling of post-sex safety after a year's worth of practice.

"Being able to switch to the bed that doesn't have a wet spot."

Whatever Sam responded with was lost under the rumble of his voice like he was something that lived in the woods, something large and feral and hers, and his groan when she reflexively clenched down around his knot echoed in her lungs.

"Sorry," she said breathlessly, "could you say that again without doing a Sasquatch impression?"

He cleared his throat. "Better than the side of a rust-bucket or a stack of tires."

True.

"It'll be worth it to have a normal sex life, I guess," she said, and Sam snorted against her hair like a horse. It was kind of gross.

"Said the sister to her brother."

_Said the father to his daughter_. Her stomach churned and she held Sam tighter. He hadn't meant it to upset her, and she didn't want to be upset after such a good day, but she—she couldn't think of it as only that, of them as just family. Couldn't.

The first time she tried to counter the statement, the words got stuck in her throat, caught on fear of loss two decades old. The second time, they were quiet but they were there.

"Said the girl to the boy she loves." Brother, mate, whatever, that was what mattered, what separated him, what she had to focus on.

Sam propped up on his elbow slightly to look at her and it was embarrassing how she somehow felt even more naked when he met her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said, brow scrunched slightly in worry and maybe confusion about where his misstep had been.

"I know."

"I love you," a declaration more than a reply.

The stupid tears were back. "I know."

He settled back down and nuzzled her temple. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Believing me. I know it's hard for you."

"Sam... "

"And I wanted to say, since I've got you trapped for a moment," he joked, making her smile, "that I want us to be happy here. I really, really do. But your happiness means more to me than how we go about it. So if you ever need something different, or more, tell me. We'll make it work. You and me."

An easy-going baby and an honest-to-god supportive mate. How the hell did she get so lucky?

"And Jude makes three."

She could feel him smile, heard it in his voice when he confirmed, “And Jude makes three.”

:::

Hours later, Deanna startled awake and rolled over under the weight of Sam's arm to squint at the sleep-blurred red numbers of the alarm clock.

3 a.m. on the dot.

Jude was officially six months old.

And she was scream-crying in her room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sobbing* I'm sorry, y'all, but also am not. That's it, it's finally finished *sobbing harder but in relief this time*
> 
> Feedback welcome and often cherished~

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is welcome and often cherished~~


End file.
